Dog Days at Wildwood High School

WILDWOOD – Teddy is the newest student at Wildwood High School, but he’s just 2 feet tall, four-legged, and covered in fur.
Teddy, a 1-year-old golden doodle, jaunts the halls of the school twice a week, side by side with Principal Philip Schaffer, to brighten students’ moods and break up the monotony of daily classes.
Teddy belongs to Schaffer, who seemed energized by students’ response to the new therapy dog program. As the animated pair travels the school’s halls between classes, students run up to Teddy, chat briefly with the principal, and then go about their day with new energy.
Schaffer did most of the hard work of training Teddy and getting a therapy dog certificate himself. Schaffer adopted Teddy when he was just a puppy and spent nearly a year preparing him, with the help of “Bright and Beautiful Dog Therapy” in Morris Plains, for the high-noise school environment.
“Therapy dogs have to be able to stay calm when they’re being crowded. If somebody turns around and whacks the dog with their backpack accidentally, a therapy dog needs to react appropriately, and calmly,” Schaffer said. “During training, we would bang pots and pans near Teddy. The trainer would grab his rear end unexpectedly. Things like that to condition him not to get mad.”
Teddy isn’t Wildwood High’s first therapy dog. The school’s former vice principal championed the program, but it disappeared for a time after their departure.
Delancey Damico, a high school senior at Wildwood High, said that Teddy “brightens up” her mood whenever she sees him.
Kalei Budney, also a senior, agreed that the dog is an instant mood-jumper.
“Animals make almost everyone happy. It’s great to have him here,” she said.
Jonathan Vargas, a freshman, said that spending time with Teddy makes him excited about potentially getting a service dog one day. Vargas suffers from seizures and hopes that a service dog could help him notice signs of an oncoming incident.
Teddy is a therapy dog, not a service dog, but Vargas said that spending time with Teddy helped him realize how well-behaved and helpful a trained dog can be.
“I just have to convince my grandma,” he said.
Schaffer said that “the biggest misconception” people have about Teddy is that he is a service dog. Service dogs serve a specific task for their handler, while therapy dogs are trained to give attention and affection in a wide variety of settings to a wide variety of people.
Teddy will be joined by Ace, a border collie, when the school’s new “wellness room” opens. Schaffer hopes that this new space can help students who struggle with the social side of school.
“After the pandemic, we saw how important it was to focus on social and emotional learning,” he said.
This new space will be a low-stress environment where anxious or overwhelmed students can come to “cool off,” talk to an assistance counselor, or hang out with a trained dog.
Teddy, and Ace, might soon join students during English class to be ‘all ears’ listeners.
“If you have struggling learners who don’t want to read in front of their peers, they can read to Teddy and Ace without judgement,” Schaffer explained.
The wellness room should open in March, assuming the remaining equipment and furniture ships on time, and the English program will start when Teddy has had more time to acclimate to the high school setting.
For a more detailed explanation of the school’s new dog therapy program, how allergies are handled, etc., go to bit.ly/3HPrgfy.