A University of Saskatchewan Professor believes that COVID-19 has brought to the forefront the important role that animals play in our lives.
Therapy dog handler, Dr. Colleen Dell, says the dogs lost their volunteer jobs when the province went into lockdown last March, but when teaching went online, she figured the Paws Your Stress program could go online too.
The St. John Ambulance therapy dogs would regularly visit the university to help staff and students de-stress.
Once COVID-19 began, the in-person visits switched to an online experience.
Dell says the live Zoom visits are an hour and some people would stay for the whole thing and others would just sign in for ten minutes.
One of the advantages of online is that it can be anonymous, Dell explains, because the visitors don’t have to have their web cameras on if they don’t want to.
One of Dell’s students did an evaluation which found that the program is appreciated and valued.

You don’t have to be a member of the university community to enjoy the therapy of watching the dogs, though.
Dell says they have amassed over a hundred videos of the dogs going for walks, or playing at the beach, and there are also more relaxing videos of the dogs being read to or just napping.
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