Barking up the right tree with Sun Devil Paws Therapy

Through the bustle of everyday school life, students yearn for a moment to pause. Every few weeks, Sun Devil Paws Therapy provides a helping paw to aid stress and provide a fun way for students to decompress with therapy dogs around campus.

Within Paws Therapy are a number of volunteers who share their certified therapy dogs to help alleviate stress across the ASU campuses. 

Laura Cristensen is on a mission to share her pups across campuses and is committed to bringing them across different spots such as Tooker House, Downtown PBS, Nelson Fine Arts Center and the Polytechnic campus. Her mini golden retriever, Kobe, sat calmly on the lawn as various students passed by and gave him some love.

“We've come into many different places on campus so that students can pet and love on Kobe,” Cristensen said.

Kobe is one of the many certified dogs that students can interact with at Sun Devil Paws Therapy but Cristensen is working on getting more dogs certified. 

“I love my dogs, and most of all, I love sharing my dogs,” Cristensen said.

Aside from ASU, the therapy dogs also help local jails build connections to their community. 

“We work at one of the local jails, and we have two inmates to one shelter dog. We have them help train shelter dogs, which helps the dogs get adopted faster, but it also helps the inmates to work and to think outside of just themselves,” Cristensen said.

Every dog makes a change at Sun Devil Paws Therapy and develops the community at ASU. These furry friends have eased the lives of hundreds of students through midterm and finals weeks.

“I love to see how many people there are sometimes that will have over 100 students swinging by,” Cristensen smiled.

Alex Matson, a student at the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering and a mentor for first-year engineering students, volunteers at Paws Therapy. After seeing the positive effects pet therapy had on himself, he decided to become more involved with the cause.

“One day, I was walking to class, and we had a couple of therapy dogs out on the lawn. There was a golden. I sat there for like an hour just petting them, and it felt good,” Matson said. “It really is a good way to relieve the stress in students. Especially around midterms, when they're stressed out the most,” Matson finished.

To get involved, it is important to get certified. Each pup is certified through Alliance of Therapy Dogs and undergoes a training process to ensure safety.

Sun Devil Paws Therapy has frequent updates on their Facebook page, outlining where they will be each month and showcasing some of their perfect pups. 

“We have a Facebook page, Sun Devil Paws Therapy. And on that page, we say where we're going to be and what dogs are going to be here. So that way, if you want to follow a specific dog, you can do that,” Cristensen said.

Through fostering mindful connections with their adorable services, Sun Devil Paws Therapy is there to cheer students on throughout their time at ASU.

Photography by Brielle Cohen, ASU Student Life