A dog that teaches helps students achieve better academic results. It's happening in the United Kingdom, where the first school for dogs who want to become teachers has opened.
Can a dog become a teacher? It would certainly seem so, at least judging by what is happening in the United Kingdom, where the "learning support dog" has been launched — that is, the dog that helps children learn. But let's take things in order. In England, as everyone knows, dogs are a social reality, and love for pets is a given. It is no coincidence that a very particular school — the first of its kind — was born there.
It is called Dogs Helping Kids (Dhk) and it is a charitable organisation whose purpose is to educate, support and assist children and adolescents through the training of dogs to work in schools as educational figures. Its stated aims are precisely to advance academic levels, increase reading skills, calm excessive behaviour in students, improve relational qualities, increase trust in teachers and the school environment, teach a sense of responsibility and respect, and motivate inattentive or dishonest pupils.
So far, only five teacher dogs have "graduated" from Dogs Helping Kids. One is called Rolo, a beautiful brown labrador, who has been assigned to Huntington School, a primary school in York. Since his arrival, the atmosphere in the school has decidedly changed. Rolo is hugely popular with the children, and they all compete to get into his good graces, stroking him or bringing him biscuits.
But it is in the classroom that Rolo's role as an "educator" is most fully felt. Pupils are more attentive, more diligent, responsible and well-behaved. They also perform better in extracurricular subjects, such as music or drawing. They even take care of the classrooms and corridors to prevent the dog from eating rubbish or anything that might harm him.
According to research conducted by Dogs Helping Kids, children read better and more when a dog is listening to them. The process that has allowed dogs to become fully fledged members of English schools was, of course, neither easy nor immediate.
Dhk explain that it took years to get four-legged friends accepted into classrooms. But now everything works very well, and demand for canine teaching staff is ever growing. Since the British Department of Education does not require dogs working in schools to be registered, it is not known exactly how many there are in English classrooms. What is certain, however, is that there are many. But Dhk's dogs appear to be of a special calibre, and are regarded as fully qualified specialist teachers.
Training a teacher dog and completing its full preparation costs five thousand pounds (approximately six thousand euros), which are raised by the school through private donations. The founder and director of Dogs Helping Kids, Tracey Berridge, explains that the idea for the school came to her while watching an American film about a dog that helped children suffering from emotional disorders. Berridge holds a master's degree from the University of Southampton in companion animal behaviour, and was the first person in the United Kingdom to study the effects of using dogs in school classrooms.
Nobody knows, on the other hand, where Jasper came from — a fine three-legged cat who made himself comfortable in the library of the English university of Cambridge. And he has not moved since. Students arrive even before lectures begin just to spend a little time with him, cuddle him, look after him and bring him food.
They have even created a Facebook page for Jasper – Cambridge University Cat Club – in which they celebrate his habits and behaviour. Since Jasper arrived, the atmosphere at Cambridge seems to have changed: less rivalry among students, less resentment and dispute. The library cat's purring is enough to soothe spirits and put everyone in the mood to study. And, perhaps, to ease the homesickness for home and for the pet left behind within those domestic walls.