GREAT FALLS, S.C. (CN2 NEWS) Not what you’d expect to see roaming the halls of a high school, but a much welcomed surprise. After months of teaching remotely getting emotional support from his dog, one Great Falls teacher has brought him inside the classroom.
Now that 5-day face-to-face classes are resuming, on his last day of school these teachers are reflecting on the pup’s time there.
Dr. Finn Finley, a Great Falls High School Spanish Teacher, says, “Teaching this year is probably been the most challenging year as far as trying to keep students engaged. And that has caused a pretty good bit of stress for a lot of the teachers.”
Ragnarr has been coming into the school for the last seven months, providing joy, and his owner of Dr. Finn says that he provides a sense of emotional support not just for him but for teachers throughout the school.
“And so the first day that we came back to school I brought him so that I would have that emotional support,” says Dr. Finn
For some he provides a sense of calm.
One teacher saying, “I like to take a break and I like to go play with Ragnarr and he just melts all the stress away.”
For others he’s brought back a closeness the pandemic took away.
Another teacher says, “I will stand in my window and wait for him to get out the car with his owner and I say ‘There he is, there he is, there he is, there he is.’ I see his value in my life and how he’s changed my thought process, how he’s changed me.”
“They enjoy talking to him, and they probably are calming down from some of the stress of their day. It’s a little break for them, it might be 15 seconds, it might be 20 seconds, but it’s plenty of time to kind a get a refocus going,” says Dr. Finn.
In the video above, CN2’s Rachel Richardson is speaking with the teachers finding out more about how such a small dog can have a huge impact.
