This year saw a furry staff member take up his post at Cobar Public School (CPS) – Alby the Therapy Dog, and he has certainly proved to be very popular.

Therapy dogs have shown to have a lot of benefits in schools, both for staff and students.

Miss Edyn Maybury, Stage 2 Assistant Principal, told the Western Plains App, "Being in a rural community, CPS did not have access to animal assisted therapy to support students emotionally and academically. To overcome this, I volunteered to train my dog Alby to become a Therapy Dog for CPS."

At CPS Alby is utilised as an emotional support dog.

"The benefits of Alby at school include an increase in school attendance, gains in confidence, decreases in learner anxiety behaviours resulting in improved learning outcomes, positive changes towards learning and improved motivation, and enhanced relationships with peers and teachers due to experiencing trust and unconditional love from a therapy dog," Miss Maybury said.

Alby the Therapy Dog proudly showing of his and Miss Maybury's qualifications [Image supplied]

To prepare for his role both Miss Maybury and Alby participated in an intensive clinical therapy course through Therapy Dogs Australia.

Together they graduated as a Human-Canine Clinical Therapy Team and Alby is certainly proving to be hit for both staff and students.

"Alby is most definitely the most popular staff member amongst staff and students. When we walk into a room everyone is always super excited to see Alby and will great him first", Miss Maybury told the Western Plains App.

Miss Keetah Richardson, a classroom teacher at the CPS, told the Western Plains App “Alby has had such a positive impact on our students and teaching staff already since his start in February!"

"My students' faces light up when Alby walks through our classroom door and they are constantly engaging Alby in our learning activities. Just recently, he was the main protagonist in a narrative text we constructed as a class."

"Alby has supported many of my students when they were feeling dysregulated by sitting with them and letting them pat him, but also just by being there for them to focus on and talk about/to while they take a moment to calm down," Miss Richardson said.

"I particularly love having Alby join us for staff meetings as his bright energy and our staff's excitement when they walk in and get greeted by Alby lights up the room!".

Both Alby and Miss Maybury are "very passionate and are an asset to the school", concluded Miss Richardson.

Therapy dogs are dogs that have been trained with their handler (usually their owner), to provide therapeutic intervention to another person in the community, in this case school students and their teachers. Find out more by looking at the Therapy Dogs Australia website.