Over the past few years, anxiety levels have significantly increased. At Del Val, however, the staff and students have had the opportunity to take an hour of their school day to relieve stress and hang out with therapy dogs. 

Therapy dogs have been becoming a more common occurrence and have numerous benefits. 

“Bringing the dogs to school shows a decrease in stress and anxiety levels,” Emily Matthews, an owner of Dutton the therapy dog said. “In the classroom, it increases student engagement, also improving students’ motivation for learning and making students feel more connected and confident.”

These dogs are able to help students have a more positive learning environment for students of all ages. 

Many schools are beginning to start having therapy dog programs attend their schools, and observing the changes in students’ work ethics. 

“Therapy dogs are not a new thing, but its kind of a new to us thing,” media specialist Tracy Miceli said. “…the first time we ran it, I saw such a huge improvement in student morale.”

Each session hosted in the Commons had been filled to the maximum capacity. Since the therapy dogs have been such a huge success, Del Val is allowing an open number of people to attend and stay for the full hour of lunch. 

”They [the students] would come in and they weren’t in a good place and then they would leave and be better,” Miceli said. 

Del Val will be having the therapy dogs back for Bring Your Child to Work Day, as more kids will be in the building. 

Be on the lookout for more details about therapy dogs.