Animal Assisted Therapy Research Paper

A therapy dog would allow students a coping method to relieve their stress that comes with a difficult high school life. Applying a therapy dog with a school will most definitely help all the students with their educational and personal problems. The overall goal of Animal Assisted therapy is to improve the cognitive, social and emotional functioning of any given patient/student (Animal Assisted… 1). A therapy dog is the key to a happy environment in high schools. For example, a student is having a stressful day, and all of a sudden the therapy dog trots up to him/her. The student bends down to pet the dog, and it get so excited and starts wagging its tail and licking the student’s face. That interaction could be just enough to brighten the student’s day. Also, some students may not want to talk to an adult/counselor or teacher because they fear judgment from him/her. Also sometimes they they feel if they go talk to the teacher all he/she will do is antagonize the problem or even make it worse. Students would just forget the adult is in the room and talk to the dog, and do work. It would be like they are telling the dog their problems and how to solve them, and meanwhile the adult still hears them. This way the dog makes the student more comfortable …show more content…
This will relieve stress resulting in a reduced number of suicides in schools and fewer students skipping class. A therapy dog must be allowed in schools to improve students’ lives. Skipping school goes hand in hand with high school stress. If students do not attend school, they are not learning. A therapy dog is great for students’ attendance for schools because they will have something to look forward to. Even though parents and students fear that too many students have allergies to dogs, a hypoallergenic dog will make it so kids with allergies can still be positively affected by the dog,