Guilty received her red heart “I am a Therapy Dog” collar tag and certificate from Alliance Of Therapy Dogs so she was now official to do pet therapy work with me.

Collar Tag.

Certificate

Guilty will join the pet therapy team along with her momma Glory and Gambler of Sand Spring Chesapeakes. She was ready to have her first visit which happened last Friday.

Gotta go to work.

I do pet therapy work each Friday at Beaver Dam Middle School during the school year. I visit 5 classrooms with my therapy dogs. Since this was her first therapy visit I got there early so I could walk her around outside and make sure she did her business. We then went in, signed in and headed to our first classroom.

What’s with all the bells and children?

I made sure I got there before the bell so that Guilty could experience the bell going off and the children milling around the hallways. I picked a spot to sit out of the direct line of traffic and away we went. The bell went off children started milling around and she just sat there and watched, nothing bothered her one bit. Of course she got rewarded as a few girls asked if they could pet her and I said yes since we weren’t in our room yet.

The goodie bag.

Guilty had her goody bad all stocked and ready to go for her visit. Since it was St. Patrick’s day she handed out green clover pencils. The kids could tell me the difference between Gambler and Guilty. A child that hardly will pet Gambler came right over and spent a lot of time with Guilty. The highlight of our day was our last room visit which was the cognitive disorder room. Guilty marched right up to the girls in the wheelchairs and licked their hands, stood there while the teachers helped the girls pet her. She switched between the two girls letting them each have a turn. She was so comfortable she would lay down by their feet until it was time to get up again and get some pets. The vocal girl didn’t bother her one bit. One girl just woke up from a nap and was laying on a tall bed in another room, the teacher came out and told me that Sophia said she wanted to visit with Guilty. Since she was on the bed the teacher asked if Guilty would sit on a chair. I told her yes she would so she brought in a chair and I placed Guilty on the chair. She saw Sophia laying there and put her two feet on the bed, I asked the teacher if Guilty could lay by her and she said yes. Gently Guilty was placed on the bed she laid right next to Sophia and gave her a kiss, Sophia pet her and Guilty stretched out right along side of her and was content to be by her. It was a great first visit! We have to make real sure that our therapy dogs aren’t going to be rough or step where they shouldn’t so most of our visits are done with the dog on the floor. We do make exceptions like in this case and Guilty proved that she could be gentle. She will still need to be cautiously watched if we do that again.

We have this Friday off for spring break then we will be back at it. We will be visiting two schools in the weeks ahead as I just got my R.E.A.D membership so I can participate in Reading Education Assistance Dogs.