SOUL Buddies Animal Therapy Club

05/15/2026

What a beautiful day for our last SOUL Buddies Community visit for the 25/26 school year. Today we partnered with Barrington Youth and Family Services & BStrong Together outside of Starbucks. Registered Therapy Dogs Sawyer, Betty, Schatzi & Gracie as well as Therapy Horse Cupcake loved sharing their unconditional love with our Barrington community. Lots of smiles, hugs and pets were had by kids of all ages. We wish our SOUL Buddies Animal Therapy Club students a happy and safe summer and see you next year!

05/08/2026

We have been so honored to have incredible seniors in the SOUL Buddies Animal Therapy Club at Barrington High School. At today’s visit we had Josh and Joie, and then Joie and others came out to celebrate! We will miss Joie, Alex, Josh and Chloe but we know the younger students will carry on this amazing club. We will see Josh at Transitions and Joie at NIU when we visit! We’re talking about a SOUL Buddies to NIU!

05/08/2026

Our SOUL Buddies Animal Therapy Club students from Barrington High School loved visiting the Barrington Park District K.E.E.P. after-school program at Grove Avenue Elementary. Therapy dogs Betty, Leo, Lizzy, Maverick and Schatzi and mini horses BlueBelle (hamming it up with “smile”) and GiGi (in training) loved visiting with approximately 50 kids plus staff. The kids had their iPads out and were taking pictures, videos, selfies and squeezed in time to visit all 7 of our special therapy animals! We look forward to visiting more of the K.E.E.P. Program schools next year! It was Joie & Josh’s 2nd to last visit with SOUL Buddies as they graduate soon. Next week we will be visiting on Thursday 5/14 with BStrong Together and Barrington Youth and Family Services at the downtown Starbucks from 4-5pm for Mental Health Awareness Month!

04/25/2026

04/17/2026

Today was the last ranch training day for the SOUL Buddies Animal Therapy Club. We have dog training next week, then 2 visits and the year is done!
We will be celebrating our seniors and all SOUL Buddies with a pizza party on May 14 after Puppies, Ponies & PAWSitive Mental Health. All SOUL Buddies from this year are invited!

04/10/2026

Such a great day of SOUL Buddies Animal Therapy Club dog training at Barrington High School. 🐶♥️🐾 Therapy dogs Betty, Bliss, Daisy, Gracie, Lizzy & Schatzi loved their walks and visits throughout the hallways! The students did such a fabulous job handing all 6 dogs!

03/20/2026

Despite a 1/2 school day, Josh still came out to the barn for the SOUL Buddies Animal Therapy Club training. He groomed the horses and the donkeys, hung with the pigs a bit, then worked with therapy horse Grace. Great job Josh!

03/13/2026

Our SOUL Buddies got lots of experience today with 4 students and 4 therapy dogs: Betty, Bliss, Lizzy and Schatzi. The club students loved sharing the dogs, visiting with students and teachers in the hallways throughout the building after school.

02/27/2026

Such a great day of training with the SOUL Buddies Animal Therapy Club at Barrington High School. The students did a great job of handling therapy dogs Bliss, Daisy & Schatzi, getting ready for next week’s visit at Lines Elementary.

02/20/2026

SOUL Buddies Club from Barrington High School had a great training session at SOUl Harbour Ranch. Started off with grooming and some braiding…, then headed to Foglia Family Training Center to work on basics of walks and whoas, stay and back. Even loud banging didn’t phase our handlers or horses. Finished the session off practicing a visit and photo ops in our SOUL Kisses booth. Great job everyone!!!!