Lusa followed an hour in the life of five of the six pupils who, voluntarily, at the beginning of Friday afternoon, gave up playing to learn with the dogs of the Ânimas association and took part in the "Confia" project, this time interacting with Zazu, a two-year-old golden retriever.

In the conversation, principal Manuela Carvalho hastens to mention that this is "a pioneering project in Portuguese public schools", explaining that it involves "students from the 3rd cycle and secondary school, aged between 13 and 16". All boys.

"Here, the emotional side is much more stimulated and they are different. There's a complete contrast between their day-to-day life and when they're interacting with Zazu, Pea or Bean," he added.

Psychologist Júlio França added: "These are students who had already been the subject of various types of interventions and the results were not what they wanted in terms of motivation, attendance and relationships between them. This project is an opportunity to reach these children through an animal and this greatly promotes motivation and adherence to the tasks, the work on socio-emotional skills and the set of rules."

Witnessing that their adherence to the project "was immediate and in terms of attendance very good", he revealed that they are currently experiencing another problem, that of "having more students wanting to take part", an impractical desire because the interactions with the dogs "only work in a small group", he said.

Catarina Cascais is the one who shows up every week at 2pm with the dog and explained to Lusa that the project aims to "work on social and school skills (...) by changing behavior patterns".

"These are students who have no connection with each other other other than the one we've started to build here in the project. What we want to work on is a series of benefits in terms of social anxiety," he added, before pointing out that the fact that the dogs don't "judge" creates "a judgment-free environment where they [the students] are able to work on mutual respect, self-respect and, through interaction with the dog, work on self-esteem, methodology, patience and resistance to frustration."

The animal's guardian also stressed that, as these are young people with behavioral problems, "interaction with the dog allows them to lower their defenses".

"They all have some behavioral problems and usually have maladjusted behavior patterns (...) like skipping school, discipline, aggression, a lot of lack of motivation and we want to counteract this a little by bringing an activity to school that is more playful, from their point of view, and then teach them adaptive behavior patterns," continued the Ânimas volunteer.

More willing to interact with the dog than to talk to Lusa, Filipe, 14, a pupil in the 8th grade, revealed that he had learned "to be patient, calm, to know how to wait and to love others", while next door, Martim, 13, a pupil in the 7th grade, said that he had "learned to be calm, not to get upset and not to shout in class", confessing, however, that this "only happens on the days when he's with Zazu".

"I could use Zazu at school more often," he confessed before they all got down on the floor to hug the dog who had made them a group with a great desire to change.

JFO // MSP

Lusa/Fim