Raised self-esteem. Increased social interaction. Improved reading skills. What are these you may ask…
These positives are just 3 benefits amongst the many of having a school dog!
A school dog doesn’t just mean companionship and a friendly, fluffy face bounding through the corridors. A school dog can provide a new found confidence to your students, reducing anxiety and increase their knowledge of dogs. The school dog training we provide to the schools find that students carry a greater enjoyment of being in the school environment, positively impacting their academics and social interaction with peers and staff.
Building resilience is vital in today’s harsh society and we encounter many who give up easily. With the support of a trained school dog and animal assisted interventions, you can build a young person’s ability to persist by encouraging them to continue teaching your school dog new tricks or persevere with practicing lead walking. This builds the ability to follow through with tasks because the young person wants to carry on, even although it's difficult, until the dog has learnt their new trick or is walking in a way that is desirable.
A student may be having a hard time opening up, communicating their feelings. Whether that be they are finding a particular class hard or feel isolated by peers. This canine assisted learning technique can elicit a non judgemental environment that encourages the student to convey their thoughts. A young person is more likely to better empathise with the dog than a teacher or other member of staff, therefore by linking and relating scenarios of the young person and the dog, this can aid in an open conversation.
PAWS recognises that more and more schools are bringing a dog into their community. Let us help you build on your relationship with your school dog and your schools community. We invite you to be part of our community with like minded educators, looking out for the welfare of their dog, their staff and their students. Our school dog training will not only equip you to be a proficient dog handler, but will set you up to succeed with intervention ideas and strategies that work as well as policies and documents that will support the work you will be doing with your dog mentor.
Drop us an email at info@pawswellbeing.org and we will be more than happy to talk you through how we can help you have a successful school dog intervention programme.