Tag: dogs

Expanding our therapy dog visit reach

April 30, 2025

A while back, I posted that some fellow therapy dog teams who live north of me had decided to focus on visits in the far flung NW metro Atlanta suburbs. Sadie & I were invited to join them for events whenever we can. Since my own Tuesday R.E.A.D. kiddos are in the thick of standardized testing through May 6th, I’ve done exactly that.

Yesterday, our group visited with 7 first grade classes at a school in Cherokee County. Sadie & I will help out on another visit with fifth graders next Wednesday. Fortunately, the drive is a reverse commute, so these visits fall within my preferred 30 minute travel window – even if the distance is a bit farther. Distance-wise, it’s similar to other specialty events we attend around the metro area, minus the traffic hassles. I will say it was great to see some folks and dogs we haven’t seen in a while.

Until this year, all of our visits have been done under the umbrella of a local therapy dog group. Sadie has a logoed vest and I have several logoed tops to wear on visits. Now that we make visits independently and with another group, Big Girl and I need to add some generic therapy dog items to our visit wardrobes. My friend suggested a therapy dog harness/vest for Sadie, a therapy dog t-shirt/non-logo polo for me and some trading cards (minus any group logo) to hand out at events. He said this will make things easier, and a lot less expensive, for me. Wise advice.

Go with your gut

March 8, 2025

When you work on a quilting project, it’s normal to second guess your choices with regard to color, thread and block placement sometimes. But have you ever had your inner voice get a hold of you and say, “Girl, fix that before you go any further!”? I have.

Summer camp @ the SQTM is coming soon. I won’t be volunteering in June. I listened to my gut – I’m headed to Pigeon Forge to take classes with 3 teachers on my list. I probably won’t have this opportunity so close to home ever again. Volunteering at July’s camp is TBD. If they’re not holding an a.m. spot for C, then we’ll do CraftLAB-summer school edition that week instead. It’s 100 mile round trip every day and commuting to the p.m. session only is not an option. Traffic is too brutal. I did that my first year volunteering. Most days, I spent more time commuting than I did mentoring my camper. Never again.

By listening to said gut, I fast tracked the new SUV purchase after realizing it simply wasn’t worth it to sink any more money into my previous vehicle. I’d already narrowed down the list of potential new SUV candidates a few months earlier. Now, I don’t worry when I travel to quilting events or therapy dog visits with Sadie. Nor do I have to worry about the effect of tariffs on repair parts and vehicle prices.

Sadie and I are in our own therapy dog bubble with school and library visits. We do affiliate with a local group, but I also do some visits independently. My local group usually has an influx of visit opportunities every spring. When checking the visit sign-ups today, I noticed there weren’t that many for my side of town. I also noticed I wasn’t seeing Sadie’s usual friends signed up for visits. My spidey senses started tingling.

My gut was correct. Made a phone call to another handler who confirmed something was amiss. The very active contingent on my side of town decided to focus on visit opportunities in the far northwest suburbs. They have now officially formed their own group separate from the original group. Well, that certainly explains a lot. I told the handler to include me on the group’s email list. We miss seeing them and might be able to join them for some future visits.

Years ago, there was a nasty split in local therapy dog circles. One leader wanted to stick with READ programs only while the other wanted to branch out to include other forms of therapy dog activities. Teams were forced to choose sides and it got ugly for a while. Hope there’s no repeat of that this time around. We’re all into therapy dog volunteering for the same reasons.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Our R.E.A.D. program begins

December 12, 2024

Big Girl is demonstrating what good listeners do while waiting for our next student. What you don’t see is a small group of special needs students being read to by a teacher in the opposite corner of the library. Sadie’s being quiet, listening attentively and watching the speaker.

We have four students we’ll see each week – 3 boys and 1 girl with very different reading levels and backgrounds. Sadie was so excited to get to work this morning! The front office buzzed us in and she led me straight to the library once I obtained my visitor pass. Zoomies around the library while I set up and an enthusiastic greeting for our first reader made for a great session. We worked on assigned reading passages together and students learned to use text evidence to figure out the correct answer to the comprehension questions. A little bit of test taking strategies thrown in there too, but it’ll help come time for Milestones testing next spring. This is exactly what I wanted to do in retirement.

P.S. I understand her friend Barney (the K-9 dog assigned to the school) stopped by to check on us, but we were busy with a student and he didn’t want to interrupt.

In other news:

Next week marks my final Monday enrichment class at CAA. My rolling tote is already packed for the lesson and activities. I’ll spend some time this weekend weeding my general craft supplies and gifting a couple of teachers the bulk of them. In late January, Sadie and I will return to CAA as literacy volunteers on Thursday mornings. This could morph into a homegrown read-to-a-dog program as there is another family in the school community who also has a certified therapy dog.

Our therapy dog work is definitely influenced by the academic calendar. Most school and library visits wrap up by mid-May. Summer months tend to be slower with random summer camps and corporate event visit opportunities. Sadie and I try to make one visit in June and another in July/August. Our established school and library programs typically resume after Labor Day.

Someone asked about the cost of being a therapy dog volunteer. There are certain requirements as to attire/accessories for the handler and dog. You’ll definitely need at least one logo shirt, harness/scarf for your dog and a 4′ leash. Besides the $40 in annual dues to the national organization, it’s really up to you. The more visits you do, the more it will cost in terms of dog grooming, logo attire for you and transportation costs. If you do kid and young adult visits like Sadie & I do, you will also need to budget for trading cards, stickers, pencils, bookmarks and other swag to pass out on visits. It all adds up to a few hundred dollars each year plus my time. Money and time well spent, in my opinion.