Ivy is Ms. Motley’s registered service dog for stress and anxiety. Ivy is a rescue and joined the Motley family just before Covid. During her training, Ms. Motley noticed that Ivy could sense when family members were anxious or dealing with stressful situations. Ivy provides deep pressure therapy and even disrupts self-harming behaviors. Because of these skills, Ivy is registered as a service dog.
After seeing the learners’ response to our School Resource Officer’s therapy dog, Bear, Ms. Motley asked if she could bring Ivy to help our learners while in the classroom. Ivy had a two-day trial period last week; your learner may have told you about it! We surveyed every learner for their honest opinions about having Ivy at school and how they felt about her in the room. 98% of learners responded that they enjoy having her at school.
Here are some of their responses about how the learners feel when Ivy is at school:
- I felt more comfortable in class and safer
- I felt more calm and at peace because everyone was more calm when she was in the room.
- It made me happy to come to school, and it calms my stress a lot.
We asked if there was anything else they would like to share:
- Animals make me really calm and really happy, and my depression goes away, and my bad thoughts go away, too
- I loved seeing everyone wanting to be around and get to know Ivy, but I felt some people quite get that she is a service dog and not just here to play with! Overall, I loved Ivy and hope she may return.
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