As part of the Sinclair Talks program, Four Paws For Ability will give students the opportunity to interact with puppies on Sinclair Community College’s campus during finals week.
“Stress relief — that’s the big thing for us [because] as we know, it lowers our blood pressure and our heart rate,” Director of the Vet Tech Program Carolyn Worthen said.
She said the puppies will be retriever-crossed, and are currently being trained to be service dogs.
“It helps every dog by making them more comfortable in lots of different types of environments and lots of different types of people. The more that they are going to be required to do in their adult life, the more you want to socialize them,” Worthen said. “It means getting them used to all kinds of different things; people, other dogs, sounds, what things feel like under their feet, all of that is called socialization.”
When a student arrives to the event, they will be asked to sign a waiver, then apply hand sanitizer before and after handling the puppies. Students will have between two and five minutes with the puppies.
“[It’s] just to keep the puppies and everybody here at Sinclair safe,” she said. “The puppies are all health-checked, dewormed and they’re all very healthy, but we don’t like to take any chances.”
The puppies will be on the first floor of Building 8 on Dec. 4 and 5 from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.