Dr. Stanley Coren, Ranger, and Ripley.
Pets of UBC Psych is a new feature capturing the pets and people of UBC Psychology. In the first instalment of this series, we feature Ranger and Ripley—furry companions to Dr. Stanley Coren.
Coren, professor emeritus and canine behaviour expert in the department of psychology, has written award-winning books on dog behaviour and human-canine interactions. He shares some quirks and stories about Ranger, a 4-year old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, and Ripley, a 9-year old King Charles Cavalier Spaniel.
“Ranger is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever and that breed has a genetically prewired quirk. When they get excited they produce a sound which sounds like a combination of a yodel and a scream. You can hear samples of this if you go to YouTube and use the search words “Toller scream”. This is potentially a problem for a therapy dog like Ranger since if he got excited while walking in a hospital setting it would sound like someone was disemboweling a child in the hallway. For that reason Ranger is used as a therapy dog only in larger group settings, such as de-stressing sessions for university students during exam periods.”
Ranger and Ripley help university students cope with stress during exams—and were part of a study Coren collaborated on with Dr. Frances Chen, assistant professor in the department of psychology at UBC.
“When Frances Chen and I were involved in a large study on the effectiveness of therapy dogs on campus, Ranger was one of the therapy dogs that we used. The study caught the attention of some media outlets and a TV crew came down to film one of the sessions. A TV reporter decided that it would be nice if they got a shot of her with Ranger—so she kneeled down close to him and got him excited by playing with his paws. He reached a paw toward her and it caught on her blouse and tore off all three buttons. That particular shot did not appear on the 6 o’clock news.”
Ripley and Ranger at a doggy de-stress session with students from Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
Connect with Dr. Stanley Coren at his award-winning blog Canine Corner.
