Have you ever walked into an establishment where one of the recognized staff members is a dog? Well if you have been to Bonner Springs High School then you have!
Nova Nugget Groves is the therapy dog here at BSHS. Her owner is sophomore Jordyn Groves. Nova was a gift to Jordyn by her mother Mrs. Chowning, the on-campus social worker and Life Skills counselor. I sat down with the three of them to learn more about Nova’s history and how she became a part of their family.
It all started when Jordyn was in eighth grade. She had been wanting a dog for a while and they had been trying to adopt a rescue named Tika. Jordyn had done a great job training Tika but she was still too aggressive for them to adopt. But Chowning would see how great Jordyn was doing while dog sitting Mrs. Krone’s, principal of the middle school, Goldendoodle therapy dogs. The whole time the two dogs would follow Jordyn around. “I was shocked about how people focused they were,” Chowning stated.
Soon, Jordyn’s birthday came around. As her present, Chowning decided after some last-minute research that they were going to adopt a Goldendoodle for Jordyns birthday. From the start, the intent was that they would always be Jordyns dog but would go to school with Chowning and act as a therapy dog after training. They found an eight-week-old puppy that became who we know as Nova, right before spring break. Luckily they have wonderful neighbors who looked after Nova for the rest of the school year while Jordyn and Chowning were at school
In Kansas, there isn’t any official training or laws for therapy dogs like there is with service dogs or emotional support dogs. So after finding a trainer that they met at their house and out in public, they picked what skills and behavior training they thought would be best for Nova to learn.
Ever since Jordyn’s freshmen year, they have slowly introduced Nova to BSHS. “Since Mrs. Krone was the middle school principal, she kind of opened the door to making it happen,” said Chowning. Slowly they started to learn more about her behavior like how she’s not the biggest fan of winter hats so they had to wear hats around the house and during training to get her used to them.
After going to school more consistently Nova started to recognize more people like Mrs. Sommers or Mrs. Miller the culinary teachers, Mrs. Madlock was Mrs. Chowning’s friend so Nova warmed up to her quickly, and Mr. Dunning has been teaching Nova how to do tricks in exchange for one of the dog treats on his desk.
During the school day, Nova can usually be found in Chowning’s office in student services unless a teacher has requested her or Chowning needs to be out of the building. Some of her favorite times of the day are when they first get here in the morning and she gets to stand on hall duty, during second chance breakfast and walks during lunchtime.
By far Nova’s favorite people are her owners. Last year it became a struggle to part Nova from Jordyn if they ran into each other in the hall but this year she has improved and knows that she has a job even though she would rather spend the rest of the day with her owner.
While Nova has great behavior at school, at home is the complete opposite. At home, she is crazy and jumps up on people. Jordyn says that Nova is “so sassy,” towards people. Jordyn and Chownig both believe that Nova is a great addition to the school and brings so much joy.
So when you see Nova in the hall next passing period give her a quick pet and think about how cool it is that our school gets the privilege of having the cutest therapy dog.
