“Dogs want to go out and run; kids love dogs and they love to run. It was a perfect match,” said Escobar, who at the time was coaching the cross country team at St. Joseph High School in Santa Maria, California.
He contacted a Santa Barbara animal shelter and they were on board. After shelter staff gave the athletes a briefing on best practices for running with dogs, the students set out on a mile-long loop around the shelter.
“It was great fun. The kids had a great time, the dogs had a great time,” said Escobar, who took video of the outing that day in 2016 and shared the sweet scene on social media.
“The tails were wagging, the kids were smiling,” he said.
Little did Escobar know then that the 60-second clip would circulate on the Internet, with hundreds of thousands of views overnight.
“It’s gotten out of hand in a very, very good way,” said Escobar, who now coordinates adult running events.
It’s been almost eight years since this video. From time to time he resurfaced on social media and starts going around again.
The video shows a group of high school students running with shelter dogs of different sizes and shapes. A student says “good girl!” » to encourage his running companion, while another brings up the rear with a dog named Fred nestled in his arms.
“Fred has had enough,” Escobar says in the video.
Not only did the shelter dog race become a core training activity for the St. Joseph cross country team, but it also resulted in some adoptions, including by the student who carried Fred. He ended up taking the dog home.
“Many, many dogs have been adopted through this,” Escobar said. “That’s the thing I’m probably most proud of.”
The video has inspired other schools to find their own puppy motivators.
“Our athletic director was getting messages and emails from other athletic directors around the country, wanting to know how they could make this project happen at their school,” Escobar said.
After a parent saw a social media post about the dog race, members of the boys’ cross country team at Steinbrenner High School in Lutz, Fla., also began doing dog races. dogs in a shelter. They have been running regularly with the Humane Society of Tampa Bay’s shelter dogs for seven years, and the program has been covered in local and national news.
“We just started and we never looked back,” said Allison Szponar, who coaches the team.
During school holidays and throughout the summer, around fifteen students stop at the shelter to pick up between 10 and 12 dogs several mornings a week. They take them to a nearby park to do tricks and play together. Some students visit the shelter weekly throughout the year to take the dogs out.
“We set out water bowls and give them treats. They just roll around in the grass and wag their tails,” said CJ Clark, 17, team captain.
He and his teammates respond to each dog’s fitness level and individual needs, which the shelter communicates to them before each race. The shelter also lets students know if a dog is injured or deformed and, in some cases, encourages them to walk rather than run.
Rigorous running can put a strain on an animal’s tendons and joints, so students typically mix walking and running during their outings, which last about an hour and a half.
“We don’t usually do long distances. Nothing more than a mile away,” Szponar said.
Shelter staff send out dogs with excessive energy or those who appear to crave social time.
“They run, walk, play with them,” said Regan Blessinger, marketing and content manager for the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. “It’s a very nice enrichment.”
Dogs spend most of their time in a kennel, Blessinger said, and need more physical and mental stimulation, as well as social time with other dogs and people.
“There are many benefits and dogs love it. They can’t wait to go,” she said.
The students are also looking forward to it.
“It’s really fun,” said Brady Peifer, 17, a student at Steinbrenner High School. “I think it’s really good for our team; it teaches us to care more about others than ourselves.
Brady’s mother, Margaret Peifer, volunteers and runs races at the shelter. She and her son also go out in their free time to take the dogs for exercise.
“It’s been really wonderful for us as a family,” said Peifer, whose daughter is a runner on the women’s team and joins them for shelter runs. “We get to know these dogs; we all follow them.
“I think my favorite part is getting to know the dogs and seeing them adopted,” Brady said.
Shelter staff said school runs have led to several adoptions over the years — by students and by other community members affected by the effort.
“We love it,” Blessinger said.
Other shelters and schools — inspired by Escobar or by programs modeled after his — feel the same way.
Jarrin Williams, the head coach of the boys’ cross country and track and field teams at Rock Island High School in Rock Island, Illinois, has been leading shelter runs with his teams since 2019.
“I try to make sure I give my athletes every opportunity to give back,” Williams said. “This is one way to do that.”
Several times during the summer and other school breaks – most recently during spring break – Williams and about 10 students will stop by the Rock Island County Animal Care and Control to exercise with dogs.
“It makes the dogs better dogs,” said Samantha Wiley, operations manager at the shelter. “They look so happy.”
The students love him as much as the dogs.
“I’ve had kids graduate who came back to run with us and the dogs. That’s how much they appreciate it,” Williams said. “It’s really cool that such a simple thing can have such an impact.”
Escobar said that looking back, he was not surprised that his short video had such resonance.
“It was 60 seconds of genuine, organic kindness,” he said. “The world needs kindness.”
