"Good Dogs" exhibit celebrates canine companions

So thank you all so much again for being here today. We just wanted to take a little bit of time to celebrate this exhibit and the stories that it represents. Dogs are a huge part of Virginia Tech history and also modern day life here at Tech. We've had dogs here since the university started. And even today we have one of the most unique teams of professional dogs working on campus between the beauty therapy dogs, Aiden and Growly. And of course we see tons of dogs around that are owned by students, faculty and staff. Dogs offer us comfort and even just having a dog come through the library or seeing a dog out on campus it brings a sense of home for a lot of students that can help with mental health and also help with connecting with others who are also interested in dogs. When Kelsey and I first started talking about how this exhibit might look we talked about first how we wanted it to make people feel and sort of how we wanted to present it and first and foremost we wanted it to be fun so I think Despite this being like a lighter topic, I think it really fits in well to the whole mission of the libraries as a great example of research, of just looking at a very specific thing and following that thread wherever it takes you. This exhibit is so much fun I think because you get to learn a lot about campus history through something that's really fun and unique and also to get to see the ways that dogs have always been here with us and how even though we probably are closer to our dogs now in modern times than we ever have been before and consider them part of the family. They've been here so long and provided so much comfort, humor, and also just support throughout the campus history.