Cerritos College student health services hosted a pet therapy session on Nov. 1 to help students and faculties de-stress while promoting health services provided by the college.

Blue canopy tents were set up in front of the LRC building and made available from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Under the shade, therapy dogs ranging from small to medium-sized waited for students to stop by and play with.

Students were just as excited to see the dogs running around, just as the dogs were also excited to see the students coming around.

Miranda Romo, a graphic design major, expressed how she felt seeing the dogs on campus, “It’s cute, it just makes me miss my dog at home.”

Romo continued that she would recommend others to come to see the pets, “Everyone between classes gets to see dogs… [or] given the time of a three-hour class or two-hour class, just take a break.”

Jamie Burton, a handler with Paws to Share, has been attending events with her two dogs for over a year.

Burton explained a bit of the process it takes to become a handler, ”They had to go through a vetting process, making sure their vaccines were up to date and temperament tests to assure they got along with dogs and people.”

She also mentioned that through this service, the pets can accumulate community service hours to become official therapy pets.

Not only do they attend other colleges, but they also bring their pets to senior homes and sometimes even elementary schools.

Under the canopy, there were also therapists on site doing their best to inform students of the services the Student Health Services have to offer.

They were handing out pamphlets with general information about the health services, as well as flyers for other workshops they’ll be hosting for Nov.

Bernadette Reyes, one of the therapists from Student Health, was doing her best to advocate for the students and make them aware of their resources.

Although Reyes is new to the team, she seemed more than willing to do what she can to help students, “We’re trying to be more consistent with events like these… We’re really trying to have more of a presence cause a lot of the students don’t know about our services is what we’re finding.”

The student health services are currently unaware of when they’ll be hosting another pet therapy event but hope to do it again soon.

However, the workshops will continue for the remainder of the semester. They have two upcoming workshops, starting on Nov. 13. and Nov. 15. They will be hybrid so you will have both Zoom and in-person meetings

Students will need to register by Nov. 10 if they want to attend their upcoming workshops. If they miss the deadline, they need to go to student health services to ask about any workshop they may attend.

From Mon. to Fri., their offices will be open from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m., so students may feel free to visit whenever they get the chance.