The dog therapy pilot program is being led by five student leaders ​Jarrod Mackenzie, Karlee Osborne, Bonnie Neil, Satina Torres, Tammy Briggs and Cameron Halmi along with their mentor and science teacher Lloyd Godson who hopes the program will be expanded in term four.

“The whole program has been driven by the students; from the initial idea and convincing the school executive to actually now having a dog at the school," Mr Godson said.

“It all started with entering a competition for state schools called School of the Future where students had to come up with ideas on how to improve something at school.

“Our application wasn’t successful but the students really loved what they were doing and so we explored other options to see if we could still do it.

“We then connected with Design for Change who were expanding into Australia and doing a similar thing and our idea won.”

Having the winning idea means the students will travel overseas to present their project to a larger audience.

“The students will be presenting their project in Taipei, Taiwan in late November,” he said.

“We are all very excited about this but what I am most proud about is their determination to identify a problem of students well-being and coming up with a solution to help them.”

Mr Godson said during the process the students have had guest speakers come and talk to them about the benefits of animals in everyday life.

“We really wanted to use the project as a way of connecting with the community,” he said.

“After the students voted to go with the dog therapy concept they had a visit from the police liaison officer who spoke about how the police use dogs.

“We also had Carolina Sarasiti come and talk about how she takes Bisco her dog into nursing homes to help the elderly and those with dementia and we have now connected with her to bring Bisco into the school.”

Project leaders Bonnie, Jarrod and Cameron said so far the project has been going well.

“We all voted on the dog therapy idea but after that it was a bit more complicated than any of us thought,” Cameron said.

“We had to speak to the principal and get the school executive to agree to our project but who doesn’t love dogs so we all think the hard work was worth it.”

“I think we all decided to go with the dog therapy project because dogs give unconditional love,” Jarrod said.

“We have school counsellors but sometimes kids don’t want to talk to an adult but they can tell a dog and  feel a bit better.”

“We are still in the beginning stage but hopefully as the program goes on individual students and groups of students can come and see Bisco to help them,” Bonnie said.

Bisco’s owner Carolina Sarasiti said she has been taking Bisco to nursing homes and is excited to be joining forces with Hastings Secondary College.

“Bisco is a Greek Hound cross German Sheppard and loves being around people,” Ms Sarasiti said.

“When I have taken him to visit the elderly they have loved him and you can certainly notice a change in people after a few visits and even in the two weeks at the school the students are very much enjoying him.”

The dog therapy program will continue for the rest of the year.