{"id":178616,"date":"2026-04-28T21:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/178616\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T21:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:16:13","slug":"pet-therapy-day-offers-university-of-scranton-students-stress-relief-amid-finals-crunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/178616\/","title":{"rendered":"Pet therapy day offers University of Scranton students stress relief amid finals crunch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The event offers emotional comfort to students when they need it most.<\/p>\n<p>SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 Once a semester at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scranton.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">University of Scranton<\/a>, the Dionne Green campus goes to the dogs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People are always like, &#8216;Oh, this is the best day ever!&#8217; So, it&#8217;s definitely a very much anticipated and exciting event on campus,&#8221; said Bridgid Guarnuccio, a University of Scranton junior.<\/p>\n<p>For twenty years now, students, staff, and faculty have been invited to bring their dogs to school, and for a few hours, the pups provide a much-needed brain break.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Oh man, students get so stressed out with finals and final projects and everything, it gets insane. And it&#8217;s a very good opportunity to come here and pet some dogs on a busy Tuesday,&#8221; said Frank McCann, a University of Scranton student.<\/p>\n<p>Finals begin in a few weeks, and the students say there&#8217;s just something about petting a dog that brings you back down to Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Diane Buckley brought her dog, Riley Ray, providing a ray of sunshine on this otherwise cloudy day on campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a big thing just to help them feel better and help them just to release that stress and pet the dog and feel all that comfort and love from Riley Ray,&#8221; said Diane Buckley, St. Joseph&#8217;s Center.<\/p>\n<p>But the students see some unintended benefits to pet therapy day, like newfound connections with their professors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Getting to meet their dogs, you&#8217;ve seen so many pictures of on lock screens and desktops the last four years, it&#8217;s a lot of fun getting to actually meet these dogs,&#8221; said Christina Kennedy, a University of Scranton senior.<\/p>\n<p>And many of these students had to leave their own dogs at home, so this provides a kind of comfort they&#8217;re really missing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Being a college student, not being able to have a pet, it&#8217;s tough. I miss my dog, I miss my friend&#8217;s dogs. It&#8217;s always good to have this even if it&#8217;s for a short time,&#8221; said McCann.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The event offers emotional comfort to students when they need it most. SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 Once a semester&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-178616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}