Educational Programs That Reach Out To The Community

by Pete Alexander

Several animal welfare organizations around the North Bay offer amazingly diverse and caring educational programs for their communities. The Humane Society & SPCA of Sonoma County (HSSC) has embarked upon an educational journey, a trip that extends its vast knowledge about animals, its services and care to the community at large. HSSC now has its longawaited education department, which was designed to be an educational facility for the community of Sonoma County. The Assistance Dog Institute offers school programs from pre-school to college level. The Marin Humane Society provides programs for kindergarten through high school, and Paws for Healing offers mentoring for therapy dog teams as well as education outreach to children´s programs.

Living with animals

The Marin Humane Society (MHS) offers a variety of programs. "Bite Free!" is a popular dog-bite prevention program for any age group that teaches how to read a dog´s body language and how to treat dogs with respect and compassion. MHS uses "The Sam Board," a felt storyboard, for an interactive story time for preschool and kindergarten classes. This short program demonstrates the dangers faced by a stray animal, and reminds the children, through discussion, of the need to treat animals with kindness.

For kindergartners, MHS offers "The Five Senses." This program teaches children how animals see, hear, smell, touch, and taste things. They learn the specific needs of animals andthe ways that humans and animals are similar and different.

For older children, third through eighth Grades, MHS Humane Officers teach students how to protect the wildlife in their neighborhoods, and share their most interesting rescues, showing them the equipment used to rescue wildlife in need of help.

Finally, for high school students, "The Social Implications of Animal Welfare" is a program that is perfect for social issues classes, offering a discussion of the humane treatment of animals and the challenges of making ethical decisions regarding their welfare.

Compassion and commitment

The Humane Society and SPCA of Sonoma County (HSSC) Education Outreach program, which is new this year, has the goals of breaking the cycle of animal abuse and/or mistreatment by reversing a generational trend. Through a series of four sessions, children are given the opportunity to learn the life-long commitment and responsibility of caring for an animal companion and to view animals as sentient, sensitive beings worthy of their time and dedication. Children will learn that a dog does not have to be purposely injured to be abused. They learn that abuse can be as simple as daily neglect, such as dirty food bowls, bad or inadequate access to water, dogs left in hot cars, over-fed dogs, no access to a clean, shaded secure fenced yard, even dogs not trained or allowed inside the house. HSSC hopes that children will pass what they learn to their parents, and teach others through word and deed how to treat all animals.

The first lesson is about compassion. Children learn that dogs have needs just like humans do. They learn about how dogs experience the world, and how we need to respond to them in a kind way. They learn that kindness makes lots of sense.

The second week is about pet care. This lesson covers the kinds of things dogs need like food and water, love, care and time, shelter, veterinary care and identification. The children learn that dogs get sick and need medical attention, they get bored if they don´t get attention, and they get cold/hot if they don´t have the proper shelter. Obviously dogs get thirsty and hungry, so they need to have clean water and good dog food.

The third lesson is about pet safety. The students learn about why dogs bite, how you might be able to tell when that is about to happen, what you should do if confronted by a roaming or aggressive dog. The class learns about how to meet a dog safely, and about how dogs communicate (since they can´t talk, they use their bodies to speak to us and their fellow dogs).

The fourth session is a field trip to the Center for Animals. The class visits the HSSC Center for the Animals, gets a short lecture about the facility, then a tour. They get to visit the vet clinic, the adoption center, the new grooming area, as well as other areas animals, like rabbits, cats and hamsters are housed.

In addition to learning how to move your dog through the courses, there are other skills to learn that will enhance the fun for you and your dog. You will learn how a positive approach to training makes a difference. A good sense of humor can take you a long way on those days that you trip and fall over the finish line. Lastly, obtaining the skill of ample patience is important during the many months of training.

The HSSC also offers four mentoring programs, three of which we cover here: the Piner High School Bio-Technology Honors Senior Seminar Class, the Elsie Allen High School Veterinarian Science Course, and the TPP program, which provides work experience for students in special education.

Agility is a great outlet for most dogs. Agility provides physical and mental exercise for an active pup looking for a job. Agility is a great confidencebuilder for the retiring canine.

In the wonderfully diverse Elsie Allen High School program, students get the chance to earn a Veterinary Assistant Certificate, with emphasis in shelter medicine and management. In this program, they get the opportunity for real-world application of course contents and objectives, as well as getting professional work experience.

The goals of this program are to provide a jumping-off point for students to pursue careers in animal care, to change behavior in terms of abuse and mistreatment of animals, and to make HSSC a resource for the outside community.

The impressive Piner High School program has room for 2-6 high school senior honors students. From November through May, each student will work in the hospital for 2 hours a week. They will have access to extremely high-end bio-technology equipment and information.

There is no certificate offered, but these students get invaluable experience and knowledge through their participation, and can use their project as part of their curricula vitae.

Dogs as teachers

The Assistance Dog Institute offers a wide variety of educational programs for the community, all outstanding.

In support of assistance dog organizations, they offer a service dog training seminar. This six-week intensive service dog training course prepares assistance dog trainers and program staff to train and place service dogs with individuals with disabilities. Using the most up-to-date methodologies, the seminar expands upon the knowledge of existing service dog programs, helps other assistance dog programs begin service dog training, and helps new programs get started.

Want to be an assistance dog instructor? This licensing program, taught concurrently with the Service Dog Seminar or the Assistance Dog Education program, covers the use of the HS A-Dog curriculum while providing student-teaching experience with at-risk teens.

The Institute´s 17-hour social/therapy training prepares the handler/dog team to visit people in a variety of settings including nursing homes, schools, hospitals, and hospice environments. The course, based on the Bonnie Bergin´s Basics & ABCs of the Smartest Social/Therapy Dog Training, teaches health and interaction protocols together with dog training exercises.

For teachers and parents, ADI uses dog training in their Teacher/Parent Training class as a tool to teach human behavior, child behavior, and appropriate teacher/parent handling and teaching techniques.

For managers who want to motivate employees more effectively, ADI´s People Management Training offers unique personnel management training that puts service dogs in the hands of the attendees, and requires that they train dogs for individuals with disabilities. Individuals with disabilities often lack the physical mobility to force responses. For this reason, service dogs must work because they want to, like to, and enjoy the results of their efforts. What better employee? The same motivational management techniques that are successful with dogs are taught via lecture and reinforced during the service dog training exercises.

ADI also offers MS degrees in Assistance Dog Education and Human-Canine Life Sciences. The masters programs are designed to fuel students´ thirst for more development in the theoretical and applied studies of human-canine relationships, expand their awareness of issues and concepts, enhance problem-solving abilities, and promote appreciation for the subject matter from a more knowledgeable context. They focus on the dog´s usage and abilities to assist humans in differing capacities with the expectation that graduates will further evolve and develop this field. They also study the human-dog relationship from legal, historical, and developmental points of view.

You can also attend ADI classes to earn an Associate of Science Degree also in Assistance Dog Education and Human-Canine Life Sciences. These might be for you if you want to incorporate dogs into your current counseling, therapy or teaching career, launch a new career in training and placing service dogs, begin a new dog-centric business, or refine your dog training skills.

Furry therapists

Paws for Healing offers a program for therapy teams that include classroom instruction, as well as two mentoring sessions. Then, the new therapy gets to follow an experienced team on their rounds to see how that team handles different situations. Then, the roles are reversed with the experienced team shadowing the new team to provide an assessment and guidance. If all is well and no further mentoring is warranted then the new team will establish a schedule at the facility and will make visitations according to that schedule.

Besides responding to requests for speakers like most organizations do, PFH also reaches out to children´s programs, such as the children´s reading program at the Davis Public Library. In addition, PFH works with teens-at-risk in Napa County. Their Special Ed program has resulted in a dog-biscuit making project that has been very successful. PFH also works with these same teens using dogs as an impetus to help the students with reading, physical education (dog agility), and job skills. For example, to help students with reading, students are encouraged to read literature about dogs to dogs.