Animals and people gathered together on the Library Lawn on Wednesday as part of an event for the Mental Health Fair.
The Paws 4 Healing (P4H) organization came to campus to set up a booth with therapy animals for students to stop by and interact with.
The booth was organized by Sociology club president Emily Ploch, who has been working hard to bring the organization to campus.
P4H brought dogs, guinea pigs and parrots which serve as therapy animals that work with people.
Joni Blank, therapy animal handler, said that the purpose of the booth was to be there to destress students and let them get a break from their studying activities and have something to feel good [about].
Blank said that this is a nationwide group with over 10,000 animals.
“Over 9,000 which are dogs,” Blank said. “With pet partners there are 30 parrots nationally [that are] therapy animal(s). They also have cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, miniature horses, llamas and alpacas and even a few pet rats.”
Vanessa Alarcon, 21, astrophysics major, said that she learned about bird body language and how the birds communicate from the booth.
Another student that learned from being at the booth is Briana Spindola, 20, psychology major.
“I learned that there are other animals other than dogs that are therapy animals, cause [sic] before today I thought it was just dogs,” Spindola said.
She also added that it was the thing she liked the most about the booth and because it was the first time she ever held a guinea pig and a bird.
She said she was always so scared of them, but knowing that they were trained to be therapy animals, it reassured her that they were going to be OK and friendly.
