by Grace Walker
Therapy dogs returned to the University of Maryland’s campus on Oct. 21 after many months away from campus due to the coronavirus pandemic. The therapy dogs come on campus twice weekly as part of the University Health Center’s Wags for Wellness program to provide UMD students companionship and stress relief.
“Wags for Wellness was born out of trying to fill a service gap and provide some stress and anxiety relief on campus,” said Sarah Wilson, a coordinator in the Health and Wellness Services Unit at the Health Center.
The Health Center works with People. Animals. Love., a nonprofit organization that works to bring comfort and happiness to those in need through the use of therapy dogs.
“As wonderful as we all like to remember college life, it’s a time where there’s a lot of stress, whether it’s with academics or with social life,” said PAL President Jessica Brede Eisenberg. “Spending some time with a therapy dog lets students just put aside the stress of academics and social life and just be themselves.”
Wilson said Wags for Wellness is a very popular program.
“On average, before the pandemic, we would have about 200 students per visit,” she said. “In any given month we could easily have 600 students served by our Wags for Wellness pet therapy program.”
Bonnie Carr and Cathy Loyd, two volunteers from PAL, have been coming to Wags for Wellness with their therapy dogs for years.
Loyd has three golden retrievers, all certified therapy dogs. Two of her dogs, Max and Sawyer, have been coming to events at UMD since 2009, before Wags for Wellness started, doing stress free events during exam season. Since the program began, she and her dogs have been to almost every event. Her third dog, Finley, who is just one year old, attended his first event Thursday.
Loyd said she got started with Wags after she realized how much her own children missed her dogs when they were away at college.
“I think that just being able to pet a dog, whether you have one at home that you’re missing or whether you always wished you could have one,” she said. “This is a way to get a mental break for an hour and just relax and settle down.”
Carr and her dog Chloe have been coming to Wags for Wellness for about four years.
“Chloe is a perfect therapy dog because she’s amazing and very in tune with people. She is also not very interested in other dogs, she’d much rather have the attention of a person,” said Carr.
Carr and Chloe also participate in read-to-dog programs, where younger children who are just learning to read will read to the dogs. Over the pandemic, those moved online, but Carr said that PAL did a great job transitioning to the online environment. “We did a lot of the read-to-a-dog programs through Zoom and it was crazily popular. We had kids from all over the United States and different countries hopping on. It was amazing.”
Thursday’s event took place on the ground floor of the Health Center. Carr and Chloe were in one room, while Loyd and her three dogs were in another. Students went from room to room to spend time with the dogs, sitting with them, petting them and talking to them. Chloe even showed off her ability to give out high fives.
Some of the older students on campus may remember Wags for Wellness from before the pandemic shut everything down, but Wilson is excited for the other half of the student body to be able to experience it as well. She said she hopes that they know that it is a place they can come and feel supported.
“Loneliness is a really significant public health concern right now, and for some folk, Wags for Wellness can be that program to fill the void, and it’s powerful,” Wilson said. “Dogs are just there to be loving and be supportive, and you’ll quite literally never feel judgement from a dog, which is pretty cool. You can just be yourself.”
Featured image: Finely (left) and Max (right) lie on the rug.