Children get PAWSitive reading experience at KPL

KINGSVILLE TOWNSHIP – Dogs make the best companions, especially for children.
Kingsville Public Library teamed with PAWSitive Therapy Dogs to offer children an opportunity to enjoy a book while spending time with a dog through the PAWSitive Reading event in the Simak Welcome Center at Kingsville Public Library.
“I believe it’s an excellent opportunity for them to correlate books with a positive experience,” KPL Youth Services and Outreach Coordinator Martha Hazeltine said. “Just sitting and reading a book next to a fluffy furry friend it’s like, ‘Hey, reading a book isn’t so terrible if I get to do it next to a dog like Orla or Remi,’ and just gives them that extra positive correlation and encourages their confidence and practicing their reading.”
Children read to a pair of dogs, Orla, a golden retriever, and Remi Skye, a Siberian husky, along with their owners during the event.
“I think for anybody, it’s good to be able to sit down and just have someone who’s not going to judge,” PAWSitive Therapy Dogs member Maria Firkaly said. “The kids who don’t like to read, even if they just want to come and pet the dog, it’s just a nice, calming thing. They pet a nice, friendly dog, and they’re soft and they’re cuddly, and they just let you love them. Sometimes we go places and the kids just want to come back and pet the dog for a while.”
More than 30 children participated in the event.
“The dogs love the attention,” Firkaly said. “They love the attention. Orla likes kids, and she’s real chill. But the kids themselves can go anywhere and they have reading to dogs, Paws to Read!, all kinds of different things. They’re reading to a dog. They don’t feel they’re being judged, so if they’re a struggling reader, they just enjoy it. Of course, as people, we sit and make the dog comment, ‘Oh, Orla thinks you’re so good,’ and those kind of things. The kids really, really love reading to the dogs.”
Both Orla and Remi Skye remained calm throughout the event and enjoyed the attention they received.
“The dogs don’t have any special training, just basic obedience,” Firkaly said. “There’s nothing special that we do, it’s just who (the dogs) are.”
PAWSitive Therapy Dogs is a local chapter of Alliance of Therapy Dogs.
“We’ve been all been tested, each team, each handler and their dog, goes through a test and then observations before they’re certified, and a tester/observer, will pass them or fail them depending on how the human and the dog react to different scenarios,” Firkaly said. “We can plan visits like this and do them together. We go to nursing homes. Because we’re in and the Pymatuning Valley area, we visit the Greenelight Workforce out in Dorset, libraries and nursing homes. We visit a drug and alcohol recovery, in Andover once a month, too. If we had more members, we’d do more things.”
“We’ve done some presentations for Cub Scouts,” Firkaly continued. “The Ashtabula 4-H would like us to do a presentation sometime in the spring. We have a lot of things that we’re doing, but we formed PAWSitive for our little group, but we are all members of Alliance of Therapy Dogs.”
The PAWSitive Reading event came about because Firkaly was looking for potential sites to test and observe dogs and their owners.
“I work at the Andover Public Library, and actually, I stopped and started chatting with John (Hutchison, KPL director),” Firkaly said. “I was in the area, and wondered, as a tester, if I could ever bring a dog in. Then, we started chatting, and I said we do the reading to the dogs in Andover as part of our summer reading, and then we hold a birthday party for (Orla) in the spring, and the kids come and read, and it’s wildly successful. So, he’s like, ‘Why don’t you come and do that?’ I’m glad we did. They had a great time.”
Hazeltine was all too happy to host the PAWSitive dogs.
“Maria contacted John [Hutchinson}, our new director, and was like, ‘Hey, do you guys want to host a day where kids can come and read to therapy dogs?’ and John brought it to me,” Hazeltine said. “I’m like, ‘absolutely’ because I don’t have dogs, but I love dogs. I just figured it would be a great way to encourage kids to practice their reading-out-loud skills and just and give them exposure to dogs if they don’t already (have it). Some of the ones who came don’t have dogs, and a couple are even scared of dogs. One child made great progress and was actually able to sit by a dog. It was exciting.”
The event served as a good way to reach out to the community on a day the children were not in school.
“It is definitely a new event for us, but I think this is an excellent opportunity, and there are kids here who I haven’t met yet, and I’ve been in this position since October, and I think it’s just an excellent opportunity to bring people to the library who might not have thought about it before,” Hazeltine said.
“I think this is extremely valuable to the community because it just offers a larger variety of programs, it’s not just story time,” Hazeltine continued. “It gets (the kids) more involved and active and it just brings a little more variety into it.”