Thread: I saw #educatingmanchester yesterday. The headmaster got a puppy to help students cope with stress. Most of the time the dog looked relaxed but not always- some stress signals. Can we have a quick chat about animals in schools please (1)

Before I start- Dogs are dogs and dressings them up can be stressful to dogs and objectify them. (Puppy in the programme was dressed up)

The dog had no choice in his participation- the puppy was put to work with children- to be touched and petted at any time, he couldn’t back out. We wouldn’t expect a person not to have a choice about how to interact with others- why do we expect that from a dog?!

Dogs are not a panacea for all problems. Clearly the education system in the UK is causing children enormous stress. The effectiveness of using dogs in this context is not clear- looks like those who like dogs benefit from them but those who are ambivalent- not necessarily.

Definitely not every dog is destined to be a therapy dogs. It’s lucky that this puppy seemed to (from what i saw) cope well with the school children- please don’t assume that all dogs will do- most won’t.

It takes some training to be a handler of a therapy dog. It’s clear that some teachers handling that dog had no such training- they struggled with puppy mouthing themselves.