By Mary Beth Coniglio
PAWS of CNY Volunteers Peggy Byrne and Eric Dayton recently visited Cherry Road Elementary School with their dogs, Ellie and Cody. This is the second time that PAWS of CNY had the pleasure of visiting with the students at Cherry Road to provide education on the benefits of pet therapy.
The volunteer teams visited 3 different classrooms with 20-25 students in each class. The volunteers talked about dog safety, how to approach a dog you don’t know, how to pet a dog, what to do if a dog is chasing you, etc. They also talked about what their dog had to do to become a certified therapy dog. They told the students where they volunteered and what they do on the visits.
The students asked the usual questions (what kind of dog is it, how old, etc.) but they also asked some new questions. They asked about the therapy visits and how the people react at the visits. Some of the students gave them scenarios of things their dogs do and asked if they could train their dogs to be therapy dogs. They asked how long it takes to train a dog to be a therapy dog.
After all the questions students got to pet the dogs and show them some love. They were a great group of kids and everyone really enjoyed the visit.