Anti-stress Puppies In Amsterdam
Dogs have been proven to help us reduce our stress levels, but a university in Amsterdam went further and created an initiative involving ‘ stress-free puppies’. If you want to know more about this project, read on to find out.
anti-stress puppies
In several movies, as well as in real training sites, experiments have been done in which those who train hard can relax by petting or playing with animals.
A university in Amsterdam wanted to bring this therapy to their students, as they know the stress levels they are subjected to due to the schedule of exams they usually take.
To implement this project, a room was created in the library where there are ten puppies available for the students to pet. There are sessions of about 15 minutes two days a week, and under no circumstances the animals stay more than two hours a day at the site.
The 160 vacancies that were available for people to benefit from this initiative have already been filled, and it was possible to identify the important benefits that the idea brought to these young people.
Already the animal protectors are not so happy, and claim that these sessions are harmful to dogs and must end immediately.
They claim that choosing puppies is a form of abuse, and that if they want to do therapy with animals, they must do it with adult animals.
However, the choice of puppies showed that they have a more intense effect on people, providing a state of peace and tranquility much greater than that awakened by adult dogs.
What measures have been taken to protect the puppies from stress?
As we said before, the time for youngsters to pet dogs is limited, and only one youngster can pet each dog, for only fifteen minutes, for a maximum period of two hours.
In addition, at all times there is a qualified veterinarian present and attentive who has all the necessary equipment to act in any situation.
With this comment, they show that the stress that can disappear from students can be transferred to animals.
In its defense, the university in Amsterdam uses examples from other countries, such as the UK, where students did something similar and got the same good results without any harm to the animals.
Puppies or adults? That’s the question that arose here. It has been shown that therapies with dogs have good results, regardless of age, but with puppies the results are more intense, faster and better.
Can dogs relieve stress?
Yes. In fact, there are many places where dogs are used as therapy animals. For example, in hospitals with terminal cancer patients, in schools where there are children with special needs, and in centers where workers are subjected to high levels of stress.
There are already many offices and workplaces where employees are allowed to bring their dogs every day, which positively influenced their performance.
By having an animal around, they feel more relaxed and don’t have to worry about whether the animal will be home alone or not. These factors allowed productivity to be higher.
So it’s clear that dogs help relieve stress, but what doesn’t seem to have been determined yet is the extent to which this can influence animals, especially puppies.
