Avani Sukhtankar is a junior at Lafayette College. It's normal for her to bring Robert to her job at the school gym.
“He's a fantastic work companion,” she said.
Robert is a one-year-old golden lab.
As Sukhtankar works toward her degrees in Psychology and Art History, Robert is working toward his ped-degree (get it?) to become a service dog.
“We take them to class, they just like sit with us basically,” Claire Coker, a sophomore English major at the college, said.
Lafayette College has a partnership with nonprofit, Canine Partners for Life.
“Canine Partner dogs help people with mobility challenges, some developmental challenges and some cognitive challenges,” Bianca Falbo, Associate Professor in the school's English department, as well as academic advisor for the doghouse, said.
Five students currently live with two pups in training in the “doghouse,” which sits just off the school's main campus.
“CPR dogs, for example, are trained to really help people keep their balance,” Falbo said. “Some CPR dogs are alert dogs so if you are maybe going to have a seizure or your blood sugar drops, they will alert you and let you know.”
The volunteers say the dogs can go everywhere the students go, except for the science lab, for safety reasons.
“One of the things we're typically teaching them is just socialization,” Sukhtankar said. “They do fantastic in class. Robert knows to just go under my table and under my chair and just sit still.”
When the dogs have their vests on, they are on duty, and people can only pet them when the dogs are sitting. When the vests are off, they can play and be pet as normal.
“You can see a change in behavior when they have their vest on, vest off, which is really something that I didn't realize would happen,” Sukhtankar said. “And I think that's really wonderful.”
For students already living a busy college life, it's an extra sacrifice.
“I couldn't have done this myself as an undergraduate,” Falbo said. “It is a 24/7 job. There aren't days off. You are always on call. The dogs have to come before everything else, and that includes academics.”
But it's one the students say they're more than willing to make.
“I'm a dog lover, that's not really a secret,” Coker said.
And in teaching the pups to become service dogs, perhaps the greatest service is to the students who get to share the classroom with them.
“I feel like a star,” Coker said. “Whenever I walk in people are like, oh! And I'm like yeah I know.”
