School dogs help students with testing, anxiety at FBCS

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SANDPOINT — Students, teachers and staff at the Forrest Bird Charter School have a unique method for relieving stress — the school dogs, a poodle mix named Olly and golden retriever and yellow lab mix, Maddie.

As FBCS counselor Vicki Vesecky walked Maddie into one of the buildings on a Wednesday afternoon, it took only moments for a student to ask if she could pet her.

The pandemic meant that for a few months, Maddie and Olly weren’t coming to school. Now that they’re back, though, students are fully embracing them.

For the past four years, Maddie has lived with the school’s administrator, Mary Jensen. Maddie comes with her to work every day and spends most of her time at school with Vesecky.

Having a dog around not only helps students relax, Vesecky said, but also helps her build relationships with the students more organically.

“Kids will approach you more frequently than if it was just me on my own, and they come and talk because they want to see the dog,” she said. “We get to have conversations, which is really helpful for me because I try really hard to know all of our students.”

The job requires a dog with specialized training and a specific temperament — so it took some time to find the right one, she said.

Help came when the school connected with Lilly Mitsui, a puppy raiser for Canine Companions for Independence, a nonprofit that connects service dogs to people with disabilities and PTSD.

Maddie, a 6-year-old retired service dog, had been used for a study on service dogs for veterans with PTSD, before being rehomed to a veteran who grew allergic to her. After being placed in a second home, a family member became allergic to Maddie, and she was returned to the CCI’s headquarters.

That’s when Mitsui reached out. The CCI headquarters had been partially burned down due to a wildfire in California, and CCI needed to place some of their retired service dogs. The charter school, she thought, would be the perfect place.

The school had four hours to decide, Jensen said, so she called Vesecky to get her input.

“I was like, is this even a question?” Vesecky said.

Even before the school got Maddie, though, math instructor Laura Maas had also been bringing one of her dogs to her class for years, which she said significantly helps her students feel less anxious.

“Math tends to be a high anxiety subject,” she said.

The dogs help with that, she said. For the past year and a half, the dog in her classroom has been 3-year-old Olly.

Unlike Maddie, Olly mostly stays in Maas’s class. Before him, Maas would bring in her older dogs. First, it was Widget, and then Zipper. She found that not only did the students experience less anxiety, but both teachers and students were visiting the classroom when they were having a hard day or just needed to relax.

The school even makes an effort to make sure the dogs are around during test days, Jensen said, as some research has indicated it may lead to higher test scores — something that, anecdotally, seems to be working, she said.

To be at the school, the dogs had to pass a Canine Good Citizen test, which includes standard commands like sit and stay, coming when called, walking through crowds and supervised separation from their owner.

The dogs also had to pass a therapy dog test, which was conducted at Valley Vista Care Center before the pandemic. Dogs need to be comfortable with things like wheelchairs and nurses running by them. Both require them to be able to behave in the presence of another dog.

The dogs have also helped students struggling with challenges including autism, anxiety, panic attacks and PTSD, Jensen said.

She recalled a student who would crawl under a table when they were overwhelmed. In the past, it could take hours to help that student out, she said. But with a dog, it was a matter of minutes.

“They would pet the dog, talk to the dog and tell the dog what the problems were and what they were feeling,” she said. “And they were ready to come back into school, the school environment. And I've seen that over and over and over again.”

When students are in the counselor’s office, Vesecky said, having Maddie present helps them to relax and get a better handle on their emotions.

“She is a great decompressor and de-escalator. Whether a kid is having a really hard day, whether they're in anxiety mode, just having her with me can really help bring a student down and kind of like, work themselves down a lot quicker than if it was just me on my own,” she said.

Dakota Fisher, a senior at FBCS, said spending time with the dogs has helped her when she’s having a harder day or stressed out — especially a few years ago.

“I had a really bad family history for a few years,” she said. “[Maddie and Olly] help a lot, because I’ve been in a family with animals,” she said, “[and] animals are more trustworthy.”

Now, as she works toward graduation, Fisher spends less of her time with Maddie and Olly. Still, she’ll make a point of stopping to pet them when their paths cross.

Even among visiting parents, the dogs have a calming effect, Jensen said. Sometimes parents will visit frustrated over something that’s happening, but the dogs have a noticeable calming effect.

“They see the dogs and immediately calm down,” she said. “And we're able to have a conversation.”