by SARAH THOMACK
St. Joseph Post
Mo and Hope are a couple of good students who walk the halls of Mark Twain and Coleman Elementary Schools.
The girls are both around one-year-old (Hope's first birthday is Thursday) and have been training together to be therapy dogs since they were eight-weeks-old.
Mark Twain Elementary Behavior Interventionist Sara McLaren trains therapy dog Hope, a Goldendoodle, and describes her as having a personality similar to Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.
“She’s full of energy, she’s like the kindergartener of the group and Mo is like the older, experienced dog… but that’s just the breed, it’s just an excitable breed, so the kids love her because she’s full of energy,” McLaren tells St. Joseph Post.
Julie Dillon, Behavior Interventionist at Coleman Elementary, trains Mo, a Silver Labrador Retriever.
“Relating her personality to a character with Winnie the Pooh as well, she might be Roo, a little bit calmer, not really jumpy, she stays pretty calm most the time,” Dillon says. “She will lay there and just let kids love all over her.”
Mo and Hope are therapy dogs at the St. Joseph School District that are part of the Behavior Animals Rescuing Kids program otherwise known as B.A.R.K.
"I am just so excited and just feel so honored that they allowed us to bring our dogs in," Dillon says. "As behavior interventionists, we use every tool we can to help a child that's gone through trauma, going through anger, going through depression, and to have another tool to help us, especially a dog, that is just so powerful to have that."
A check from three St. Joseph Rotary Clubs, which was part of a larger District Grant, was presented to the school district this week, to fund the therapy dog program.
Jean West is a St. Joseph School District Social Worker and Trauma Consultant and Trainer who says they have been working for several years with the Rotary Clubs on other projects and grants for schools to help students who may be dealing with trauma.
“We do our very best to educate our children, realizing that some of them come in with some very difficult social and emotional issues as well and in order to get them to the place where their brains can focus and they can retain information, they have to be able to regulate all those huge emotions that they have,” West says. “So the things that we have been able to put in place - the therapy dogs, the Regulation Rooms, the Comfort Corners - so many interventions that have been provided by our District Community Rotary grant has made a huge difference.”
West says the therapy dogs have already been working their magic at the schools.
“It’s just so neat because when you see a child and they’re upset and then they see the dog - I’d describe it almost like melting - their eyes light up and they’re like, ‘Wow. Comfort, companionship and somebody that will love me unconditionally and that I trust unconditionally.' Dogs are just like that.”
West says she's working to also hopefully be able to fund and create a stress-reduction kit for students attending virtual classes at home this year.
