Purdue Veterinary Medicine’s Pets for People Club teamed-up with Purdue Convocations Sunday afternoon, February 24, for a special pre-show event featuring therapy dogs in the lobby adjacent to Stewart Center’s Loeb Playhouse. The dogs were there to interact with people arriving for a dramatic stage presentation that brought to life Jack London’s classic tale “Call of the Wild.” The thrilling story of courage and survival penned by the famous author was presented in Loeb Playhouse at 3:00 p.m., as a multimedia adventure that included storytelling and projected images. An hour prior to the performance, attendees joined Purdue Convocations and the Pets for People Club in the Stewart Center lobby to learn more about the novel and to meet trained therapy dogs.
With the help of a grant from the Business Office for Student Organizations (BOSO) as well as support from Purina, the Pets for People Club brings in the organization Pet Partners (formerly the Delta Society) once per year to certify club members’ pets as trained therapy animals. Throughout the year, the certified therapy pets and their owners make visits to community schools, senior care facilities, and other organizations to share the therapeutic benefits of the human-animal bond. The club’s faculty advisors are Dr. Alan Beck, director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond and Dorothy N. McAllister Professor of Animal Ecology in the Department of Comparative Pathobiology, and Dr. Niwako Ogata, associate professor of animal behavior in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences. Third-year veterinary student Stephanie Morgenstern serves as the club president.
The presence of the therapy dogs at the pre-show event was fitting, given the star of Jack London’s well-known novel. In the book, Buck — the offspring of a St. Bernard and a Scottish Collie — is kidnapped and put to work as a sled dog in Canada’s Klondike Gold Rush of the 1800s. As the call of his ancestors courses through his blood, Buck discovers his own endurance and strength to become the most famous dog in the northland’s history.