(Image via @umassd_stemlab / Instagram)
Volunteer Writer: Allison Gleavy
Email: agleavy@umassd.edu
Gracie, the Laboratory Labrador, has been providing emotional support and reducing stress for UMass Dartmouth STEM students for two years. Given her success, why can’t all students receive this support?
UMass Dartmouth should have an emotional service dog in each building so every major can reap the benefits.
STEM students can find Gracie in her owner, Chris Peter’s office, room 217, in the SENG building. There, she holds appointments intended specifically for emotional support, and she’s been extremely successful.
“I’m happy to say Gracie’s calendar is fully booked! She has about a half dozen to a dozen students stopping in a week,” said Chris Peter. She not only has people come to her, she also visits rooms before exams to provide a de-stresser.
While Gracie is great, her location makes her inaccessible to many UMass D students. Liberal arts majors rarely find themselves in the SENG building, therefore missing out on Gracie and her emotional benefits.
Dogs are proven to provide a plethora of emotional and mental benefits.
According to the Alliance of Therapy Dogs, “Petting a dog has been shown to help boost your mood, relieve stress, and reduce blood pressure.”
These are benefits that college campuses especially could use. It’s well-known that mental disorders impact a large portion of college students. Many struggle with anxiety, depression, and stress.
On-campus dogs can lessen the negatives of these disorders and make students’ lives easier. Animal-assisted therapy has been proven to reduce stress and even relieve homesickness. Just the presence of a dog can reduce anxiety.
Providing mental benefits makes the dogs an academic resource as well.
If UMassD were to bring other support dogs, they should provide the same services as Gracie, including visiting classrooms before exams to reduce the stress and anxiety students are suffering from and allow them to be more competent, focused test-takers. Additional dogs could simply provide an outlet for those struggling. As Gracie is the only therapy service dog on campus full-time, students could benefit from having another animal to interact with instead of always counting on Gracie.
Despite all the good things that come with another on-campus dog, there will always be downsides. As a service animal, Gracie requires some additional care and attention.
Peter said, “There is more oversight as trainers and testers want the best for the dog so – weight checks, grooming, etc.” Not to mention training and certification.
It also brings up the question, who would do it?
Someone on campus has to be willing to get a dog, have it certified as a service animal, and complete the process to have it allowed on campus. However, that could be a simpler fix than many believe.
So many UMass Dartmouth faculty members already own dogs. Many are dog lovers. Promoting the benefits of having a dog on campus for students, along with the benefits of a person being able to have their pet with them 24/7, could prove to be reason enough to get a service animal. The work put in to train and care for these dogs is given back tenfold by the emotional and mental support they provide.
People already own dogs; they just have to be willing to train them.
This will not only benefit the school but also the dog and its owner’s home life, as they’ll have the best-behaved dog on the block.
Emotional service animals may require a little more effort, but it is entirely worth it.
UMass Dartmouth smoothly integrated Gracie the Lab Lab into campus life; a LARTS dog could fit in just as well. Following a similar schedule to Gracie’s, having one-on-one meetings, napping at the desk, playing with students, and visiting before exams, this dog would also benefit from a loving community.
Liberal arts majors would now enjoy the anxiety, depression, and stress relief a good dog can provide, which the STEM majors currently enjoy.
One simple addition could improve test scores, assignment completion, and overall student mood.