On Thursday, dogs and handlers from Thrive Animal Rescue visited Cathedral during break and lunch in efforts to reduce students’ stress levels. With just days to go before Christmas Break, Cathedral students are no doubt feeling the pressure to perform well on their final exams. Knowing that her peers might be in need of some relief, junior Page Stein decided to bring in some special guests to help alleviate the stress.

Page first got the idea to bring in dogs for stress relief when she was visiting colleges this past summer. “A majority of the colleges I visited this summer said that they bring in dogs during their exams to relieve student stress. So I thought ‘If it worked for colleges, it could work for Cathedral,” said Page.

Page then got in touch with family friend and founder of Thrive Animal Rescue, Ms. Cece Bloum. Thrive Animal Rescue is an organization that rescues dogs from shelters with higher euthanasia rates, and fosters the dogs until they are adopted. Cathedral’s “Revive and Thrive” event marks Thrive Animal Rescue’s first experience with pet therapy, but Ms. Bloum hopes to expand their new program.

“Hopefully we can continue to pick up good, family-friendly shelter dogs, and find them homes. In the mean time, when the dogs are still being fostered, I’d love to see them interact with more students at more high schools and colleges,” said Ms. Bloum.

During break and lunch, students were given the opportunity to hold and pet three dogs: Macy, Gracie, and Carl. Macy, a Basset Hound, and Carl, a small mixed breed, were found in “high-kill shelters” and were in very poor health before Thrive Animal Rescue took them in and got them clean bills of health. When Ms. Bloum found Gracie, the largest dog of the three, she was a stray in Bonita. All three of the dogs that students interacted with are up for adoption and Thrive Animal Rescue is looking to place them with “loving, forever families,” Ms. Bloum said.

Cathedral students flocked to the”Revive and Thrive” tent set up outside of the library for a chance to pet and fawn over the therapy dogs. Overall, the event was a success with many students feeling momentarily distracted and relieved from stress.

“For the few minutes I got to hold the little dog, I totally forgot about all of things I was stressing about,” said junior Jacob Lira. Junior Melissa Vorndran agreed and said, “Yeah! I wish we could keep the dogs, have them with us all the time, and never feel stressed!”