June 26, 2025
TOM HAWLEY/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Watching five-minute videos of therapy dogs and their handlers helped relieve stress for college students, a new study shows. Pictured here, a therapy dog visits a school.
Dogs offer unconditional love, acceptance and loyalty, making canines not just popular pets but also the most common animal used in therapy.
Service dogs undergo rigorous training to perform specific tasks for people with disabilities. Therapy dogs act as individual support animals and are also used in community settings such as hospitals and nursing homes. Studies show dogs can benefit people with mental health issues, boost the moods of health care workers, evoke empathy and joy in people with Alzheimer's disease and decrease pain levels in children after surgery.
Therapy dogs can even be effective in virtual interactions, new research shows.
For the study, published in the journal Human-Animal Interactions, 900 college students and 120 community members separately watched five-minute videos of a therapy dog and its handler. The videos replicated techniques used during in-person canine therapy sessions. People participating in the study completed surveys about their stress levels before and after the sessions.
Both the college students and community members experienced significant reductions in their stress levels from the virtual sessions. And because the sessions were free and easy-to-access, the model could be used for people who have trouble finding in-person mental health support due to schedule or location restrictions. It also might be helpful for people reluctant to seek mental health support in more traditional settings, the researchers concluded.
Here are some ways that therapy dogs are being used in the Philadelphia region:
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has a pet therapy program in which volunteers and their dogs visit patients to help reduce stress, normalize the hospital setting and support children's emotional and physical development. CHOP's King of Prussia location has a waitlist for volunteers, but the Center City location has a need for them.
Drexel University has three therapy dogs on its Philadelphia campus to help students make the transition from home to college. The three dogs – Espresso, Java and Mocha Latte (who is still in training) – are on campus 20 or more hours a week to hang out with students. The dogs also attend some campus events.
The Free Library of Philadelphia has a free "Read to a Canine" program for children learning to read. Each child is assigned to a therapy dog to read to and pet. The next session is July 2. Space is limited.
Pals for Life offers ways for people of all ages to interact with specially-trained therapy animals throughout the greater Philadelphia area.
PAWS for People provides pet therapy for anyone who needs it in Chester and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania and in South Jersey.
