Delta Society are bringing a dog-hugging pop up to Martin Place (Sydney)

Need a healthy hit of dopamine? Delta Society are launching a new initiative focusing in on the relationship between puppy love and stress relief with “Paws the Pressure”, aimed at assisting morale across various workplaces and universities around Australia. The program, which is officially titled “Australia’s Delta Therapy Dogs”, will be staging a pop up in Sydney’s Martin Place to launch the initiative, setting up a space where the public can come along for a round of free hugs with these furry stress-busters.

To raise awareness about employee and student wellbeing, the program has been based on research which shows that the human-animal bond remarkably improves the quality of lives, benefits overall mental, physical, and emotional health, and keeps people in high spirits to add to a sense of community and connection. Having four-legged friends around the work environment can help lower blood pressure as well as stress levels, so from 8am to 3pm on Friday 8th July people are advised to take a little break from routine and head down to the busy business precinct to lift spirit with a free hug from one (or four) of many loveable dogs.

These Delta Therapy dogs have been cheering up the sick and elderly for the past 20 years, so they know what they’re doing when they run on over and jump up on you.

“Paws the Pressure has allowed our canine companions to bring many smiles and reduce stress levels in workplaces and we’ve certainly seen a positive change in the offices we’ve visited.” said Dr Katrina Warren. “The dogs were a huge hit and my dog Riley was treated like a superstar – it’s truly amazing to see the human-[dog] bond and the remarkable power of [dogs]”.

The Paws the Pressure pop-up will be at Martin Place from 8am-3pm on Friday 8th July. For more information click HERE.

———-

This content has recently been ported from its original home on The AU Review: Food & Lifestyle and may have formatting errors – images may not be showing up, or duplicated, and galleries may not be working. We are slowly fixing these issue. If you spot any major malfunctions making it impossible to read the content, however, please let us know at editor AT theaureview.com.

Chris Singh

Chris Singh is an Editor-At-Large at the AU review, loves writing about travel and hospitality, and is partial to a perfectly textured octopus. You can reach him on Instagram: @chrisdsingh.