As of recently, Mr. Cecala has been spearheading the campaign to bring back Madison Dodger’s mascot, the German Shepherd. While it has been mostly been supported throughout the student and teacher body, we aim to ask the real question, why not get a live German Shepard to represent our mascot? We decided to go around and ask everyone we could to see their opinion on this pressing matter!

Now you are probably wondering, why would we need an actual dog? Well in the words from Madison’s own Mr. Joseph Cecala, “It would be awesome!”  Imagine the idea of a German Shepard running out with our football team during home games. It would greatly increase school morale if we had a dog during school events and sport events. We could also adopt a therapy dog, which could hang out in the guidance office so when a student feels stressed, they can go to pet the dog. Studies show that interacting with animals, especially therapy animals, increase levels of the stress-reducing hormone oxytocin while also decreasing the production of stress hormones. It doesn’t even need to be a therapy dog, it could be from St. Huberts or even a drop out from the Morristown Seeing Eye. Student volunteers could take turns caring for the dog as well, whether that means playing with it, taking it out so it can do its business and/or feeding it. Not to mention all the great name ideas. If it is a boy, some good names could be Dodger, Hartly, Ted. And for a girl it could be Madison or Maddie, Monica, Lucy (for Lucy D field), or Tory. In short, all around, most people support the idea of getting a mascot and think that it would really boost the school moral, making us the talk of Morris county.