This May, hundreds of Caldwell University students filled the Newman Center Courtyard to try out bracelet beading, massage therapy, dancing, crafts and a host of other activities to serve as stress relievers before final exams. One of the most popular activities was furrier than the rest of them: dog therapy.
As stressed students tax colleges’ conventional mental health resources, universities have been conjuring up new ways to reduce stress and anxiety. Since 2005, the use of therapy dogs on college campuses has gone from nonexistent to the norm—one of the main reasons, proponents of the program say, is because of the low cost.
Anxiety and depression are on the rise among college students. More than 11% of college students have been diagnosed or treated for anxiety in the past year, and more than 10% reported being diagnosed or treated for depression, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Over half of college students feel overwhelming anxiety that strain their academic abilities, according to a recent report from the American College Health Association.
“Maybe years ago, having these events wouldn’t have been as needed, but because of increased stress levels, now they are,” says Robin Davenport, Director of Counseling Services at Caldwell.
At the first Tufts Paws for People event, the university expected about 20 students to show up—over... [+]
Most university pet therapy programs are entirely free for students and practically free for universities. The dog handlers are most often volunteers who bring their own pet-therapy certified dogs to campus for special events and receive no pay. Costs for the handlers themselves only amount to parking fees and registration fees for training their dogs.
Universities also don’t take the burden for any incidents with the dog that happen on campus, like a dog biting a student. The two largest therapy dog training schools, Pet Partners and Therapy Dogs International, offer liability insurance covering up to $1 million for any incident with a trained dog.
From the start of pet therapy on college campuses, the cost of liability was a concern. When Kent State University researcher Kathy Adamle approached the school’s administration in 2005 about starting a pet therapy program, she says, the university turned her down.
“I thought they were going to kill me. This was unheard of, to do something like this at a state university,” Adamle says. “They said, ‘What if one of the students gets sick, what if dog destroys something?’ It took them a long time to understand we’re not going to take a dog off someone’s couch.”
A year later, Adamle finally convinced Kent State to launch the program, she says. Once the first pet therapy programs introduced to a U.S. college, starting with five dogs in 2005, Dogs on Campus now has 26 dogs and has conducted over 100,000 visits.
Robin Davenport, Director of Counseling Services at Caldwell, kneels beside Joey, a French Mastiff... [+]
Sometimes, pet therapy programs even help provide for other university services. For the 10-year anniversary of Kent State’s program this year, those who participated in dog therapy were asked to donate non-perishable goods or gift cards to the university Women’s Center that could be given to students in transition or crisis.
“How can you really turn this down when you are carrying no liability and the program is free for everyone involved?” Adamle says. Since launching the program 10 years ago, she has received calls from hundreds of universities asking how they can implement similar programs on their own campuses.
Campus pet therapy has spread like wildfire, with success that has gone far beyond what many schools predicted. When Tufts University held its first Tufts Paws for People event, the school expected about 20 students to show up—over 200 did.
Dogs can increase levels of oxytocin in humans, a hormone that reduces anxiety and blood pressure, studies show. People become less frightened and more secure when they pet dogs. But whether dog therapy programs can have an impact on one’s overall mental health is still unclear.
“Anything we can do to de-stigmatize mental health is important, so taking a holistic approach to treatment makes sense,” says assistant professor at Tufts University Megan Mueller, who has conducted her own research on the benefits of pet therapy. “As we learn more about how human-animal interaction can reduce stress and anxiety, we think this might be a really interesting cost-effective method of helping students’ mental health.”
Hundreds of universities around the country have launched pet therapy programs for students since... [+]
The biggest pet therapy cost for a university is time. Julian Aiken, a librarian at Yale Law School, made headlines in 2011 when he started bringing his certified dog Monty to the library, who can be “checked out” like a library book for meetings with small groups who want to interact with him.
“It’s cheap in terms of money, but not in terms of my time. I’m paid by the hour, and some of that I’m clearly spending with dog,” he says. Now 15 years old, Monty has retired, but Aiken is training his year-old Jack Russel Pippa to fill Monty’s shoes. For Aiken, the time he puts into the program is worth it.
“I’ve been delighted with this program. I think anything we can do to stop student stress is good,” he says. “Dogs give uncomplicated love.”
