{"id":43216,"date":"2018-03-11T18:49:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T00:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=43216"},"modified":"2018-03-11T19:05:48","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T01:05:48","slug":"pet-a-puppy-helps-sait-students-cope-with-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2018\/03\/11\/pet-a-puppy-helps-sait-students-cope-with-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"Pet-a-Puppy helps SAIT students cope with stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span> lot of post-secondary students experience stress during the school year, and petting an animal is proven to release stress in students and improves mental health.<\/p>\n

S<\/span>AITSA hosts a Wellness Wednesday event every week on campus, offering many activities such as free breakfast, free tea at the peer support centre, free skate, Take a Break, and Pet-a-Puppy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe noticed that mid-week tends to be really stressful for students,\u201d said Sarah Hogendorp, the peer support centre co-ordinator for SAITSA.<\/p>\n

Hogendorp said that SAITSA<\/a> understands that many students might not be able to have a pet due to living situations or cost. But they don\u2019t want students to miss out on the opportunity to release stress by petting an animal.<\/p>\n

\u201cPuppies are cute and cuteness should be a part of everyone\u2019s day,\u201d said Hogendorp.<\/p>\n

Pet-a-Puppy is important because managing your mental health is a skill that is not taught, and SAITSA is going \u201cabove and beyond\u201d to provide students with the tools to manage their mental health, said Hogendorp.<\/p>\n

SAITSA offeres the Pet-a-Puppy event every month, all year around, not just during exams like other post-secondary schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe like to help out all through the semester, every month, without fail, puppies all the time,\u201d said Hogendorp.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Reach For The Treat: <\/strong> SAITSA had a pet-a-puppy event on SAIT campus for Wellness Wednesday on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. This dog’s name is Dexter. He is an eight year old pug. Pet-a-Puppy helps student release stress during the academic year. (Photo by Jenny Lyver\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The dogs come to the event are from a volunteer organization called Pet Access League Society (PALS)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At PALS, all the animals are vetted, they have to pass personality tests, and they have to be comfortable with large numbers of people and other animals.<\/p>\n

One of the volunteer dogs, Prudence, named after a John Lennon song, is a four-year-old golden retriever and his favourite place to volunteer is at SAITSA\u2019s Pet-a-Puppy event.<\/p>\n

For SAITSA\u2019s events, five of PALS dogs usually come, and around 125 students show up to pet them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a huge dog lover and I had a lot of stress on me due to school and I knew the dogs would calm me down,\u201d said Theresa Meehan, a first-year hospitality management student at SAIT.<\/p>\n

Meehan said that Pet-a-Puppy is beneficial to students because the dogs really do help with stress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t exactly have time to go to Pet-a-Puppy but after I did go, I felt 100 per cent better because the dogs put me in a good mood which helped me get more work done,\u201d said Meehan.<\/p>\n

Even if the dogs only take the students’ minds off things for 10 minutes, it is still helpful for their mental health, said Meehan.<\/p>\n

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Lets Take A Selfie: <\/strong>This dog’s name is Cardhu, and he is taking a selfie with a SAIT student. SAITSA had a Pet-a-Puppy event on SAIT campus for Wellness Wednesday in Calgary on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. Pet-a-Puppy helps students release stress during the academic year. (Photo by Jenny Lyver\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot of post-secondary students\u2019 experience stress during the school year, and petting an animal is proven to release stress in students and improve mental health. SAITSA hosts a Wellness Wednesday event every week on campus, offering many activities such as free breakfast, free tea at the peer support centre, free skate, Take a Break, and Pet-a-Puppy. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":43217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S3 Pet a Puppy","footnotes":""},"categories":[1109,1106,2,510],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-image","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"category-physical-health-and-wellness","9":"category-campus-2","10":"category-saitsa","11":"post_format-post-format-image"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43216"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43932,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43216\/revisions\/43932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}