Safety Rules Crucial when Introducing Kids to Dogs
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Today was our first pet therapy session of December. We work with autistic/cognitively challenged children in elementary through high school classes. Some are withdrawn and uncommunicative, some think they’re reaching out to pet the dogs but actually have only moved their hands a few inches away from their bodies. Our missions are to foster interaction and trust! Lots of times we succeed and that gives us all great feelings of accomplishments.
Brandy and I work with the older kids and in today’s session we worked on teaching them how to introduce themselves to dogs–friendly or otherwise. Safety is always a concern when approaching unknown animals but is especially important for both the person and the pet when the individual is disabled in some way. Animals sense when things aren’t “normal” as they know it and they, too, need to adapt to a different surrounding or personality. Children (and adults!) need to understand that animals, like people, want an introduction before a friendship is initiated. So, here are 4 key points that we go over that everyone can benefit from: (more…)
