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Two weeks after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, students and faculty members are starting to go back to their classrooms. The community is still mourning the death of 17 people, and it is hard to make the kids go back to the scene that gave them their most traumatic experience to date.
To help students cope with their trauma, Principal Ty Thompson thought of having a comfort dog on the premises. Comfort dogs from the Lutheran Church Charities help kids do better. Petting the dog for several minutes provides better results than talking to a counselor. The charity has around 100 golden retrievers and they plan to send eight to ten more dogs to comfort the students of Parkland.
Dogs don’t judge people. They don’t take down notes. They are also easy to talk to and that’s why kids prefer comfort dogs to traditional therapy sessions. Part of the healing process is talking about the trauma, and kids find it easier to do with comfort dogs.
Dogs provide comfort to survivors of the deadly school shooting. They become the source of relief during the traumatic times after the shooting. School officials say that dogs will be on the premises as long as kids need them.
It is not the first time comfort dogs help survivors cope with tragic events. The Lutheran Church Charities first used comfort dogs after the events of Hurricane Katrina. Since then, the organization has around 130 comfort dogs in 23 states. The dogs were part of the healing process in Las Vegas after the shooting in fall. The comfort dogs also did their part to heal communities affected by traumatic events in Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Sandy Hook, and Boston. The dogs are sent to places that need them the most at any given time.
