The ConVal School Board had an unusual guest Tuesday night when Charlie,  Peterborough Elementary School’s therapy dog, stopped by for a visit during the regular “Points of Pride” agenda item.  

“I had wanted to bring a therapy dog into one of our schools for quite a while. It was a long process getting this program going, but making this happen is a real testament to the kinds of programs we can do in our district,” Forrest said.

Charlie was accompanied by Melissa Saari, founder of Cold Springs Healing Paws Foundation in New Ipswich, and Shannon Dunning, who is Charlie’s trainer and handler. Forrest presented a PowerPoint of Charlie’s impact on students at PES in the past year documenting Charlie’s classroom visits, individual visits with students, and role in impacting positive behavior.

“One thing I really love is that time with Charlie is used as an incentive in some students’ individual education plans, and they can choose time with him as a reward for reaching their goals,” Forrest said.  

According to the the presentation, Charlie is trained to detect and respond to elevated cortisol levels, a hormone linked to stress.

“When we visit classrooms, Charlie knows instantly who is having a bad day, who is anxious,” Dunning said.  “We had a student who had had pretty bad bite dog bite on her face, but the mom was really encouraging us to try us help her get over her fear. So Charlie went to this student, and pretty soon, he had his face on her thigh.  She sat with him for a while, and pretty soon she asked if she could give him a kiss on the nose! And this was a child who had had a terrible bite on her face. Charlie just knew how this student felt,” Dunning said. 

ConVal School Board Chair Dick Dunning (father of Shannon Dunning) said he has been amazed to see Charlie in action. 

“His ability to sense stress is amazing. It is incredible to see what he brings to the kids at the school. He can de-escalate a stressful situation pretty quickly,” Dunning said.

Dunning noted that Charlie is named after the late Peterborough Fire Chief Charles James “Jim” Grant, who was a Dunning family friend.

“Shannon wanted to name him after Jim, in honor of all that Jim had done in service to our community for so many years,” Dick Dunning said.

In answer to questions from board members about the training process for therapy dogs, Saari said that school therapy dogs go through more intensive training than service dogs who are assigned to just one person. 

“These dogs receive 15 to 18 months of training.  Charlie got 1,000 hours of real-world training before he could be around any children.  400 little people touching him every day is a lot, ” Saari said. “Service dogs only have to worry about one person, while facility therapy dogs have to worry about a whole community.” 

Saari said Charlie was recently deployed to assist with stress mitigation after the lockdown at Conant High School.

“The goal is to have a therapy dog at ConVal as well, but it is a long process to get this program going and it is a big commitment, so we will see,” Forrest said. 

For more information about the Conval school  board please go to www.conval.edu.