Brooks: Behold, the great Minneapolis Valentine puppy cuddle

Come to Minneapolis.

We’ve got puppies.

Three-year-old Rois tugged his parents into the Meet Minneapolis offices on a subzero Thursday morning and stopped abruptly, eyes widening as he took in the view.

A crowd of blissed-out downtown office workers stood around the Minneapolis Visitor Center on Nicollet Mall, nuzzling puppies. February can be a challenging month for Minnesota tourism, but Meet Minneapolis cracked the code.

One corner of the visitor center had gone to the dogs. One play pen held a litter of five speckled cattle dog/rat terrier pups. Another barely contained seven golden retriever/lab mixes. Admirers gathered around them, passing puppies back and forth.

When you snuggle a puppy, you feel better. That’s just science.

“Snuggling up with your pup has been shown to lower blood pressure, reduce heart rate, and decrease levels of cortisol, the stress hormone,” explained Kris Lyons of Piece Wellness. “Just a few minutes of cuddling your dog can trigger a release of dopamine and oxytocin, lower cortisol levels, and reduce blood pressure. Studies have shown that petting a dog for as little as 10 minutes can significantly decrease stress and promote relaxation.”

After snuggling puppies for significantly longer than 10 minutes, I can confirm this. All the puppies at the event are available for adoption from Healing Hearts Rescue and if you are interested, I can personally vouch for the soft ears, cold nose and big puppy eyes of a little brown terrier named Cherry.

“I don’t know who’s having more fun -- the puppies or the people,” said Chris Boulton, one of the Healing Heart volunteers.

Events like this are a great chance to socialize the puppies and dogs who come into the rescue. And there are enough Minnesotans in need of a dopamine hit for Healing Hearts to offer puppy party rentals for private events like birthday parties. The $5 suggested donation at Thursday’s event will go back to the rescue to care for the animals.

The volunteers don’t need a scientist to tell them about the healing power of puppies. They’ve seen it for themselves. One day, rescue volunteer Maribeth Larson brought a group of her foster puppies into a nursing home to entertain the residents. One woman, who was blind, held a wriggling puppy and began asking excited questions about it — its name, its breed, the color of its fur. When Larson looked up, she saw that some of the people around her were in tears.

“‘It’s the first time we’ve seen her smile since she got here,‘” they told her.

This isn’t the first time Meet Minneapolis has invited the community downtown for a puppy cuddle and it won’t be the last. The visitor center has hosted several puppy cuddles and one memorable bunny cuddle. There have not yet been any kitten cuddles, Meet Minneapolis spokesman Kevin Kurtt confirmed. Possibly because kittens are tiny beclawed roulette wheels. Maybe someone could organize a kitten cuddle/Red Cross blood drive.

So if you’ve been wondering what you’re missing downtown, now you know. And if you missed out on puppy cuddles, Healing Hearts — like most of the animal rescues around town — is always looking for volunteers.