Tail Waggin' Tutors Day

Take a classroom of 27 to 30 youngsters, 7 & 8 years old, add in four therapy dogs, and you're in for an interesting and fun hour or more.  A team of four "Tail Waggin' Tutors" therapy dogs and their owner/handlers, including Katie and myself, met at a local elementary school this morning.

The premise of Tail Waggin' Tutors is to allow children to read to the dogs.  They lose their nervousness and forget about the other children as they read to a dog, who makes no judgements but simply lays there and watches and listens.  Many children choose to pet the dog while reading, others after they're done.  This activity helps the youngsters gain confidence in their reading skills.

The teacher surprised the children this morning with the visit from the dogs.  They had written their letters to Santa and she had them read the letters to the dogs.  We had two large dogs - Steve,a mastiff and Cruiser,an irish wolf hound and two smaller dogs - Charlie, a cavalier spaniel and Katie, a pomeranian/cocker mix and the only mixed breed in the group (also the only female and the senior citizen of the group).  The children were amazed at the sizes of the two larger dogs and couldn't understand how Katie could be the smallest and the oldest at the same time.  They were, to say the least, completely enthralled with these dogs.

Each dog was in its Christmas finery and had bookmarks with his (her) individual picture on them and candy canes  for all the readers, and all the children read to at least one dog.  The dogs, as usual, were all on their very best behavior ... lying on their blankets, paying attention to each reader, accepting all the petting by any number of children individually and numbers at a time.

It was a great morning!  The children had a great time, as did the adults.  Even the dogs seemed to be smiling.