Therapy dogs attend school

St. John Ambulance uses therapy dogs to help people in stressful situations and on Monday eight of the dogs went to school.

They were at Ecole Publique l’Odyssee to start a pilot project.

One of their handlers Andrew Gerard says the benefits of a therapy dog are clear.

“For instance, after the shooting on the Danforth in Toronto Luke took his dog Dexter and helped relieve the stress of people impacted. It’s proven your blood pressure goes down because you’re petting a dog,” he says.

The idea came from principal Ashli Lewis.

She has seen the benefits of a therapy dog at other places like hospitals and wanted to try it out at the school for students.

“They deal with anxiety and a lot of stresses. Things are different today so if we can have them relax and put a smile on their faces it’s great,” she says.

Gerard says this is the first school they’ve gone to but they regularly go to Canadore, Nipissing and the North Bay Fire Department.

There are 22 dogs in the program.

Infact, they visited Canadore’s aviation campus after a helicopter that took off from North Bay crashed last fall in Southern Ontario and claimed the life of a Canadore instructor.