COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Student stress levels are on the rise in Granville Schools and the district is trying out a very fluffy solution to help reduce anxiety.
George is a 6-month-old poodle and therapy dog in-training that’s already a hit with the students at Granville Middle School. More than 75% of students at Granville Middle School describe their stress level as “very high”. That’s up 9% from the previous school year.
“Just seeing George sitting in his room and looking out the door just puts a smile on my face most days,” said 7th grader Carmen Wells.
George has been at GMS since mid-October. His owner and handler is Misti Postle, who is also the school counselor.
“It’s been really positive,” said Postle. “Anxiety levels are increasing. We think that social media is related. We think that high academic demands are related. There’s a lot. It’s very complex, but we’re looking at all of it just to see what we can do to help.”
She said coping strategies weren’t meeting the rise in stress, so she did some research and found out about therapy dogs.
“It’s the actual touching and petting of a dog. It’s also being with an animal and caring for an animal,” said Postle. “It’s just been proven to reduce stress, to create calmness, to boost confidence.”
Postle said she’s already seen an increase in students coming to her for help.
“I feel like it’s broken down a barrier between students and myself that they can say, ‘Oh, I’m just going to go see the counselor to hang out with George.’ Instead of, ‘I’m going to go to the counselor and talk about something,'” she said.
Students are loving every minute of him being in the school, helping them cope with whatever they might be going through.
“He’s helped a lot of students with like stress with homework,” said 7th grader Lillian Reese. “You can just go in Ms. Postle’s office and just hang out with George, pet him and he’ll like lick your face and stuff and it really helps with that.”
George is currently in obedience training. Postle said she hopes to have him therapy dog certified by fall 2018. He has an Instagram account that you can see by clicking here.