An assistance dog project underway since December 2022 has helped six struggling students at Inês de Castro High School in Vila Nova de Gaia improve their grades, attendance and behavior.
Pp followed one hour in the life of five of the six students who voluntarily, early Friday afternoon, gave up playing to learn with the dogs of the Ânimas association and participated in the “Confia” project, this time interacting with Zazu, a two-year-old golden retriever.
In the conversation, principal Manuela Carvalho hastens to mention that this is “a pioneer project in Portuguese public schools”, explaining that it then involves “students from the 3rd cycle and high school, aged between 13 and 16”. All boys.
“Here, the emotional side is much more stimulated and they are other. There is a complete opposition between being on a day-to-day basis and when they are interacting with Zazu, Pea or Bean,” he added.
Psychologist Júlio França added: “These are students who had already been subject to various types of interventions and the results were not as desired in terms of motivation, attendance and relationships among them. This project emerges as a possibility to reach these boys through an animal and this greatly promotes motivation and adherence to tasks, the work of socio-emotional skills and the set of rules”.
Testifying that their adhesion to the project “was immediate and in terms of attendance very good”, he revealed that they are currently experiencing another problem, that of “having more students wanting to participate”, an impractical desire because the interactions with the dogs “only work in a small group”, he said.
Catarina Cascais is, weekly, the one who appears at 2:00 pm with the dog and explained to Pp that the project intends to “work social and school skills (…) by changing the behavior pattern”.
“These are students who have no connection with each other other other other than the one that has begun to be built here in the project. What we want to work on is a series of benefits at the level of social anxiety,” he added, before pointing out that the fact that the dogs do not “judge” creates “a judgment-free environment where they [the students] are able to work on mutual respect, self-respect and, through interaction with the dog, work on self-esteem, methodology, patience, and resistance to frustration.
The animal’s guardian also stressed that since these are young people with behavioral problems, “the interaction with the dog allows them to lower their defenses.
“They all have some behavioral problems and usually have maladjusted behavior patterns (…) like skipping school, discipline, aggression, lack of motivation and we intend to counteract this by bringing to school a more playful activity, from their point of view, and then teach them adaptive behavior patterns”, continued the Ânimas volunteer.
Five months later, she said, in terms of results, what has been reported “is that the motivation for school is already increasing, there is an improvement in grades and a decrease in aggressiveness among them,” revealed Catarina Cascais.
More willing to interact with the dog than to talk to Pp, Filipe, 14 years old, an 8th grade student, revealed having learned “to have patience, to be calm, to know how to wait, and to have love for others”, while next to him, Martim, 13 years old, a 7th grade student, said that he “learned to be calm, not to get upset, and not to yell in class”, confessing, however, that this “only happens on the days he is with Zazu”.
“I could use Zazu more often at school,” he confessed before they all lay down on the ground in a hug to the dog that made them a group with a lot of drive for change.