Today was the first visit from Winston the therapy dog at the library.\u00a0 He did a great job, and two very happy families got to hang out with this gorgeous and sweet pooch.\u00a0 Winston is a golden doodle, and he’s very tall and very soft and (despite the golden) pitch black.\u00a0 He’s one of the coolest looking dogs I’ve ever met, and he is very, very well behaved.<\/p>\n
In case you’re not familiar with the use of therapy dogs in libraries, the idea is to provide children with a non-judgemental listener to whom the children can read aloud.\u00a0 Dogs don’t speak English, and they certainly don’t read, so they don’t know if their child reader friend has just mis-read a line from the book.\u00a0 All the dog knows is that he or she is happy to hang out with his or her young literary fans.\u00a0 And the kids who read to a therapy dog come out smiling and happy and with renewed reading confidence.<\/p>\n
It’s a terrific program, and I’m so glad that Julie, Winston’s owner and handler, came to me with the proposal of doing a program at the library.\u00a0 And I’m really looking forward to the remaining four “Paws and Read” sessions that are scheduled for this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was the first visit from Winston the therapy dog at the library.\u00a0 He did a great job, and two very happy families got to hang out with this gorgeous and sweet pooch.\u00a0 Winston is a golden doodle, and he’s very tall and very soft and (despite the golden) pitch black.\u00a0 He’s one of the … Continue reading Winston the therapy dog<\/span>