Therapy dogs brought in to help stressed students on campus

AUSA organised a meet and greet with man’s best friend in a bid to relieve student stress about impending exams.

On Thursday lots of “cute” dogs from Canine Concern Scotland Trust took over the Uni’s Chaplaincy in the spirit of helping students calm down and take five during revision.

Both of you are adorable

Therapets came to campus thanks to Genna Clarke, President of Welfare and Equal Opportunities and Veronika Hofmann, President of Societies.

Genna says: “We had a lot of positive feedback from the puppy room that opened in the run up to the May exams in 2013.

“Exam period is a stressful time and with the change in the exam timetable it means that students aren’t getting to go home before exams for the first time which can be really difficult for a lot of people.

“The Therapet dogs give students the chance to take fifteen minutes to get away from the stress of exams and have fun with some cute dogs.”

The AUSA Presidents first pitched the idea in September, saying: “We wanted to offer something to the students that would act as a stress relief, and after looking at what some other universities were doing, we decided to bring in Canine Concern Scotland.

“Coming to see the dogs really seems to be helping with taking people’s minds off exams – even for a short period of time.”

That dog is smiling

Veronika, who came up with the idea said: “The dogs are so lovely – people come into the room smiling as soon as they see them, and leave smiling – it’s really nice to be able to give students the opportunity to come and have a break and relax a bit”.

Linda McDonald, one of the Aberdeen reps who works with Canine Concern Scotland, introduced us to the dogs.

Linda says: “The dogs are all family pets who volunteer around the community as therapy dogs.

“They visit nursing homes and hospitals, as well as working with children with special needs and the disabled.”

Paws For Stress is running again on the 9^th of December, and the event has been so successful all of the slots to meet the dogs have been filled. If you didn’t manage to book a place in time – never fear – we took loads of pictures for you.

Here’s what some of the students had to say:

Here’s some of the dogs:

You are so cute and I love you

This dog is prettier than most people I know

Look at that tiny fluffy face.

Yes, you ARE the good boy.