On May 22, PHS welcomed a new therapy dog, Barney, during a Pup Rally in the Fieldhouse. In honor of Barney, the band and choir performed, and superintendent Christie Willis and principal Kenneth DeMoss gave speeches. The same day, Barney met his new primary handler, Communities in Schools site coordinator Travis Smith, and his other three handlers: DeMoss, counselor Maggie Ohneck, and home services specialist Joe Britton.
“At first I was like ‘Man, I don’t know if I want that responsibility’ but it’s good behavior I’m seeing from him and he’s very calm for the most part,” said Smith. “Since he’s a puppy I thought he was going to be jumping off the walls but he really has done really well.”
Barney was born on Sept 7, 2023 in Kentucky and trained by Ultimate Canine, a dog training academy, in Indiana.
“They train dogs for the military, for police,” said DeMoss. “They train service dogs for those that can’t see or are deaf or whatever that the case is. In this case, Barney is a social-emotional dog.”
He was able to come to PHS because of the Friends with Paws program that West Virginia First Lady Cathy Justice is involved with. Several local companies and community members offered to help the school to pay for vet bills, grooming, food and anything else Barney might need.
Barney’s job is to visit classrooms and walk the halls to allow students to see him and pet him. The goal for having Barney is to reduce stress and help make everyone happier. Barney knows many tricks and commands such as sit, stay, heel, snuggle and knuckles.
“Really the biggest thing is when you are in the hallway, you can just tell him to go say hi and he’ll go up and he’ll lick,” said Smith. “He’ll lick the person, but if the person doesn’t want him to lick I can tell him not to lick and he’ll just kind of be around you so you can pet him.”
In order to keep Barney and take care of him, his school handlers had to go through three days of extensive training. They had to learn all of his commands and all of the rules that apply to him. He has to be fed in a specific way and he is not allowed to eat anything off of the floor.
“There’s a lot of criteria to be able to handle Barney,” said DeMoss. “He’s got a $2 million liability policy. You have to follow the commands that we have, do check-in training and they want us to send videos of us doing the training back to Ultimate Canine.”
Even when Barney is not at the school, he still has to practice his commands so that he doesn’t forget them. He knows when it is time to work when Smith puts on his vest. Smith said he notices a shift in behavior from Barney being at home without the vest and being at school with the vest.
“He does change personality a little bit when you put his vest on,” said Smith. “We got out of the car and he was in the back and I get out and I tell him to dress and he put his head down and I put his vest on him and he totally changed. It was kind of cool. Pretty smart dog for being such a young pup.”
For the rest of this school year Barney can be seen in the hallways and popping into classrooms for visits. If a student is ever feeling stressed and thinks they need to see Barney to help them, all they have to do is talk to their counselor and a visit can be arranged.
“His job here is to just make life happier and to possibly take the stress or anxiety out of someone who’s feeling it that day,” said DeMoss. “It’s hard to get him in the building in the morning because people just wanted to say hi to him.”
