THERAPY dogs are in high demand in Ararat reflecting a nation-wide trend for their use in educational and health settings.<\/p>\n
19-month-old Murray River Retriever Hollie was on hand at the East Grampians Health Service children\u2019s clinic on Wednesday morning, to offer cuddles and support to children receiving their vaccinations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been amazing,\u201d said student vaccinator Elanah Battistin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dogs are a good distraction and help calm the kids down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hollie and her owner Helen McPherson trained with Ararat local Annie Silva.<\/p>\n
Ms Silva\u2019s course has not only attracted several local participants, but people and dogs from as far afield as Canberra and the Northern Territory.<\/p>\n
Post-pandemic, the need for therapy dogs in schools is high. Therapy dogs offer comfort and support to students who experience a range of difficulties, such as anxiety. Thankfully, there are several local trained therapy dogs and therapy dog handlers that are currently working in our schools.<\/p>\n
In a health care setting, dogs like Hollie can help kids relax during the vaccination process.<\/p>\n
When asked about their visits to the clinic, Ms McPherson said that Hollie\u2019s visits had been \u201cwell received.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tell the kids to look for the big brown dog,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ms McPherson explained that in her dog therapy handler role, she has quickly learned to gauge which kids like dogs, and which ones don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost kids like dogs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ms McPherson also takes Hollie on her morning rounds at Lowe Street, where she works as a nurse.<\/p>\n
Nurse immuniser Mary Janssen describes Hollie and other local therapy dogs that visit the vaccination clinic as \u201cfantastic de-escalators and distractors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another therapy dog which regularly visits the clinic is Labrador Murph (owned by Irene Kelly.)<\/p>\n
The need for therapy dogs like Hollie and Murph is set to increase, if local and national trends are anything to go by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THERAPY dogs are in high demand in Ararat reflecting a nation-wide trend for their use in educational and health settings. 19-month-old Murray River Retriever Hollie was on hand at the East Grampians Health Service children\u2019s clinic on Wednesday morning, to offer cuddles and support to children receiving their vaccinations. \u201cIt\u2019s been amazing,\u201d said student vaccinator […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG_6731.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-aO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}