Canine companions infiltrated Centre Wellington District High School (CWDHS) on Jan. 21 and 22 to give students an opportunity to forget about exam stress and focus solely on the dogs.
Over two days in the school’s first ever “puppy room,” 128 students took 10 minutes out of their lunch hour to pet and cuddle with the four legged “de-stressors,” all National Service Dogs in training.
Madeline Castella-Chin, a Grade 12 student and co-prime minster of student council for CWDHS, started the program.
“I thought exams are really stressful and I’ve seen puppy rooms at universities and I thought why not bring it to high school,” she said.
CWDHS held Doggie De-stress on Jan. 21 and 22, the last two regular school days before exams began, Castella-Chin said, adding that bringing in service dogs wasn’t her first option.
“We originally were looking for puppies but then we realized that it would probably be a better decision for safety and just for overall experience with a therapy dog,” she explained.
Enter Naomi Negrin, a National Service Dog trainer.
“She helped contact a whole bunch of other friends with service dogs and here we go,” Castella-Chin explained.
For Negrin, participating in the puppy room was a way to give students something she never had.
“I’ve been to college twice and there was always the puppy rooms but they were never at my colleges and … for myself I found dogs to be the best de-stressors ever,” she explained.
“So I wanted high school students to have what I didn’t have when I attended Centre Wellington.”
Dogs hold a unique place in the de-stress process, she explained. “Just petting [the dogs] makes [the students] feel better,” said Negrin.
The benefit is not only for the human companions; the canines learn something valuable to their service dog training as well.
“It’s a great socialization,” Negrin said. “They get used to being petted by people and learning to ignore the other dogs that are nearby.”
Negrin is currently training Cello, a nine-month-old Bernese mountain dog and Labrador retriever cross – a dog that is familiar with the human social scene.
“This is Cello’s first time for a puppy room but she’s been to restaurants, malls, the movies, she went out to dinner last night,” Negrin said with a laugh. “She’s getting all over.”
Castella-Chin said the response from students has been positive.
“People really like it,” she said. “I guess there’s a soft spot in everybody for dogs and so it’s really good.
“Somebody (who) just walked out the door was like, ‘I’ve never been more de-stressed in my life.’”
For Grade 10 students Emma McKenzie and Sydney Drimmie, the experience was memorable.
“It’s fun to play with dogs and hug them,” McKenzie said.
“I really like dogs and it is stressful around exams and this was to de-stress and I think it helped,” explained Drimmie. “I was really not distracted and wasn’t thinking about exams when I was doing it.”
For Drimmie the 10 minute session wasn’t enough.
“I would have done it again. I wish it was longer,” she said.
Castella-Chin said that she hopes to run a session prior to June exams as well, and she wants to train a younger student who could carry on the tradition once she graduates.
