12+ years ago a good friend said to me, you need to have a dog with you for the work you do. Deb was a breeder of Teddy Bears, a designer breed, Shitzu and Bichon Frise, 50/50. She had recently bred her female and had a female pup ready to be adopted. That is how FAITH came to be with Horizons4Girls.
A Facebook friend of mine has a nationally recognized small therapy dog, Gizmo that worked with her in the school system in Connecticut and she and I immediately had some extended discussions. I did my research and Faith and I began our journey of training together.
Faith became a certified therapy dog and then became certified in advanced therapy to work with me with the ‘at risk’ students of Horizons4Girls.
Now for those of you that are pet owners …..how many times have you wondered what your pet — dog…cat…or whatever is thinking? Well, they are watching you for clues on what YOU are thinking too. The trick is to learn to read that stream of communication.
Faith is an angel that works side by side with me every day. She can put a new student at ease. As the group gathers in our classroom, Faith will scan the room, the mentors and the students. She will walk up to someone experiencing an issue and sit at their feet until invited up into a person’s lap. Her message seems to be, I’m here for you.
Faith will go with us on field trips, and with me to public presentations and coffee shop meetings with donors, parents and volunteers. She is the attention grabber as I enter a room, a great opening opportunity for me to have those conversations with donors, potential volunteers and students.
One of her favorite activities is her library visits. We visit libraries and young fresh new readers read to Faith from a favorite book. H4G students are involved as a favorite craft activity is creating bookmarks that are given to these new readers…….FULL CIRCLE — A LOVE OF READING HAS BEGUN!
Get you copy today of Mentoring Relationships, Just Talk to Me and find out more of how Faith impacts those mentoring relationships.