The Northern Michigan University Wildpups return back to campus with meetings in the Lydia M. Olson Library. Their first session will be Monday, Sept. 18 at 12:30-2 p.m.
The Wildpups are an animal assisted therapy program at NMU that started in 2021. This program involves a human or handler-animal team that provides aid to the improvement of others’ physical, cognitive, and psychological functioning.
These teams meet in the library a handful of times each semester to provide this kind of support to students, faculty and staff. The Wildpups’ goal is, “to provide recreation, education, motivation and support to enrich campus.”
Professor Michelle Andriacchi, who is the handler of Fonzie, a Siberian husky, attends the meetings regularly. Fonzie was a rescue from Oklahoma and has found his forever home with Andriacchi and The Wildpups, who are all professionally trained therapy dogs.
Andriacchi, a professor for the School of Nursing at NMU, helped the School of Nursing conduct research in partnership with the Wildpups to add data to the claim that the therapy dogs helped lower student stress and anxiety. Participants filled out an optional survey about their stress and anxiety levels, as well as getting their their blood pressure, heart and respiratory rates measured before and after meeting the pups. The School of Nursing found that all of those levels decreased in participants after spending quality time with the dogs.
“I am excited to support campus and that’s what we [The Wildpups] are here for. And we are looking forward to the research opportunities,” Andriacchi said.
If you are ever feeling overwhelmed or stressed, The Wildpups might be able to help. For more information on the pups, you can visit their website and view more upcoming dates on The Hub.
