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What is the Dogs Connect Program?

Community Introduction Click here to watch a short clip to learn a little bit more about Dogs Connect.

Positive Impacts of having a wellbeing dog at my school When connection is built authentically between human and animal we see reduced anxiety, lowered heart rates, increased social and emotional development and more.

School attendance

Students experience a greater willingness to be active in the school environment when there is a school dog. Schools we have helped said their attendance rates improved as children looked forward to seeing the dog and interacting with them.

Building empathy

Students can see the impact of their actions on their wellbeing dog. This helps them understand how behaviour impacts people around them. As a result, children learn to be more empathetic and understanding.

Engaging and connecting

A dog in school gives students a shared interest with other members of the school community. This helps them interact and build connections that they may have struggled to do otherwise. Wellbeing dogs can even be used with literacy programs as children may be less self-conscious reading to dogs than teachers or their peers.

Dogs Connect is an organisation that helps introduce a wellbeing dog into settings such as schools, hospitals, aged care and justice communities. We work with your community to design a long term, sustainable program to integrate your dog. We aim to achieve as many mental health benefits as possible.

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Introducing a wellbeing dog into our school community�

A wellbeing dog can help students in a whole range of ways. Being near a dog can reduce stress and anxiety and decrease the heart rate.
Dogs can help us to feel more connected to our school, learn to understand ourselves better, and grow confidence in relating to others.

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Helping Rafi learn to relax

Rafi first job is to learn to relax at school.
This is his place of learning and working too, so we need to respect his personal space and safety – just like we do with students, staff and visitors.
It’s important that Rafi can walk around without unnecessary distractions or feeling unsafe.
Rafi will be coming to school and visiting classrooms shortly. Stayed tuned.

A relaxed dog is a healthy dog and

we need your help with this

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3 Expectations

When you see Rafi, keep these three things in mind:

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Things to do:

Things to not do:

Standing around staring
Saying Rafi’s name when passing by him
Crowding around
Asking to pat Rafi
Being excited and loud

Say hello to the person (not the dog)

Give lots of space when we pass the dog

We keep moving

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Rafi’s next job

Once Rafi has learnt to relax, his next job will be to learn to meet more people.

He will be taking things slowly and being very careful about how he walks, sits, plays, and greets people. This can take a long time, but we would love for him to be here for years so it is important that he takes his time.

HERE IS A LINK to see this in other schools

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