Boulder, CO— The presence of dogs on campus doesn’t just increase overall well-being and the number of smiles per day; they may also increase test scores, but not in the way that you might think.
Business major Paige Trein was coasting through her classes at a 70% average during the last semester. “It wasn’t anything great, but I was getting by.” That was before she adopted Frito, a Chihuahua rescue.
“I’m not sure what happened. I thought I was just riding the high of adopting a dog and all the feelings that come with it, but it persisted.” Paige told us, all smiles. Now, she has a 90% average in all of her classes, which she attributes to Frito being her good luck charm.
We checked in with Paige’s friends to get the full story.
“Dude, it was bonkers, like, at first I was all this chick has got to be on adderall or something, because no hate, but she can’t study for crap,” said Bo Quinn, a roommate of Paige. “But then I was like, hell, I’ll try anything once. I started taking the thing for walks, and my grades went up. That dog is an angel, bro.”
Paige’s other friends corroborated Bo’s statements. In fact, they have jokingly split their lives up into two parts: B.F. and A.F. (Before Frito and After Frito).
One of Paige’s professors, at first, accused her of cheating, but quickly leaned into the Frito explanation after putting Paige in a different exam room for tests. Frito was quickly brought onto campus for further research, and it was found that when Frito looked at someone he loved, his emotions were felt so strongly that he boosted serotonin in others, which in turn boosts their brain activity. The test was repeated with other dog owners, with the same results.
“It wouldn’t be remiss to say that dogs are lighting up areas of the brain previously found to be dormant in business students.” Paige’s professor said.
Researchers are attempting to conduct the same studies on cats, but getting drastically different results. Terrence Lawford, a student researcher, said: “Either something is wrong with our machinery, or cats are purposefully trying to make their humans fail exams so they’ll spend more time at home instead of going into the workforce.”
