Our Dad: A True Scanner

I have recently discovered that I am what is called a Scanner, someone who goes from project to project, always coming up with new ideas, doing great creative work, pushing the boundaries, and always on the look out for new things to get involved in and to learn. That doesn't surprise me, especially since I was the daughter of two people who today would probably be called scanners.

My father is the obvious one. My sister and I had both zeroed in on him. My mother is not so obvious, but it is very obvious to me that she too was a scanner, creatively going from project to project, always eager to learn new things. I am quite sure that this commonality brought them together.

My mother was a very creative, very talented woman, who did not have the opportunity to finish school the way she would have wanted. She kept a good neat home, and she was incredibly creative. And the creativity led to many projects of many different kinds, from sewing to teaching her daughters many different things to interior decorating (our homes) to coming up with incredible ideas for school papers we had to do to breeding and showing Boxer dogs.

But let's look at my Dad in this article because he was a very obvious scanner.

My Dad was born April 18, 1917. He had a pretty normal childhood albeit he was a latch key kid since my grandmother worked for AT&T to earn money for the family to live on while my grandfather went to college to become a teacher.

Neither of my paternal grandparents, or my maternal grandparents, were scanners. Indeed, our grandparent families were so normal that I will never forget the day my Dad, having gone back to college while I was a teenager, and having gone to Boston University Theological School while I was in high school, was installed as a Methodist minister. Beautiful ceremony, and since he already had a church, there were many of his parishioners there to support him.

I was sitting in the second row between my paternal grandmother and her mother, my great grandmother, Bertha Jones Buzzell. The service was beautiful and as they put a stole on my Dad signifying that he was a minister, my great grandmother turned to my grandmother and said, in a not too low voice, "Clevis never did amount to much, did he?"

I had to put my head down as I couldn't stop giggling. I remember nothing else about that ceremony outside of all the people that were there than my great grandmother's comment. I still giggle when I think of her in that situation.

Gram Buzzell was a neat person, a Quaker, who had built a meeting house/school house on her farm so the family could have meetings on Sunday and a school room for the children on week days, and she will be another story for me to tell.

But going back to my father: I count the number of things that we know that he got into as jobs and some as hobbies:

Dropped out of college, either because he wanted to or because his parents could not afford the tuition during the depression -- I always heard the latter but I suspect both things are correct

1. Dishwasher in a restaurant our mother was a waitress in: that is where they met each other -- and how did they meet? Actually, she picked a dirty glass up from a table that was set for the opening of business and she rushed into the kitchen with it, accosting our father. I was told once by our mother that suddenly she, a five foot three woman, was balling out a six foot three dishwasher who looked down on her anger and just started laughing!

2. US Army patrolling the Panama Canal Zone on horseback -- and there is nothing about this mounted corp that protected the canal zone anywhere on the Internet. But somewhere there are pictures of my father in uniform on a horse in the canal zone.

3. Back in New England, he married our mother in Vermont and went to Mass Radio School

4. Pan American Airways radio officer -- Coral Gables Florida

5. Eventually grounded from Pan Am and given a desk job because of ulcers -- didn't like desk jobs so moved on

6. US Merchant Marines on the run from Boston to Mermansk and back during 2nd world war

7. Merchant Marines came after Pan Am? I guess I never thought of the sequencing here, but it did.

8. Railroad man -- moved to Greenfield MA for this work, but I cannot remember exactly what he did on the railroad but I do remember we had to go pick him up when he came into the station on the Christmas Eve night that my sister was born -- I was four years old

9. Worked behind the counter where car parts were sold at an auto dealer in Greenfield Mass

10. Drove a wholesale bread truck to businesses in Vermont and back every morning (we still lived in Greenfield, and there was one memorable morning when my father, who had gotten sprayed by a skunk came home stinking and cleansed it away with ketchup? That's what I remember.

11. Drove a retail bread truck to customers in Greenfield Mass

12. Insurance sales man for Metropolitan Life Insurance

13. Thanks to the influence of a phenomenal English Methodist minister, Rev. Hopkinson, in Greenfield, he decided to enter the ministry when Hoppy died. He was given provisional status in Maine with a church at Cape Porpoise when I was going into my sophomore year of school.

14. He went to the University of New Hampshire for four years, driving back and forth from Cape Porpoise every day all winter, to get his BA degree; majored in English; during the summers of those college years, went to Boston University Theological School for a ministerial degree.

15. Served three churches in succession starting with Cape Porpoise, then South Portland, then Scarborough . . . all in Maine.

16. Our paternal grandparents retired and moved to Scarborough because they liked the community – near Portland and closer to their summer home, and of course, near our parents..

17. Dad left the ministry in 1963 when a Scout that he was guiding drowned at a lake near Scarboro.

18. Totally disillusioned, he turned away from God for letting that happen, and became an English Teacher

19. Taught first at Peelskill Military Academy in Peekskill NY

20. When PMA closed down 1968, he got a job teaching high school English in Norway Maine, a school that serviced eight communities in western Maine Norway and Paris Maine. First they rented a house in South Paris; then they bought a house in Norway.

21. He never got to retire: he was retired when he had a severe heart attack followed by a stroke just before he was supposed to be released from the hospital and that stroke left him unable to talk.

22. Along the way, he taught swimming in Greenfield, Northfield, etc. to children and teens

23. He was a Mason and a member of the Scottish Rite

24, He was an excellent photographer, developer, and printer -- in one home, he had a dark room in the basement; in other homes, he made do with a bathroom which meant that he did not have the time he had with the dark room to do his work.

26. He was a writer, whose stories are fun to read, but he refused to try to publish any of his stories because he believed they were not good enough to be published. I have "published" many of his stories on a blog in his memory – see http://dearjubilee-inmyfatherswords.blogspot.com/2011/06/snapshot-in-time.html

Our Dad was bright, smart, friendly, always had a lot of friends and was always well liked by his colleagues and his students. He had a quick mind, a stern demeanor, and he swam like a fish.

Knowing Our Calling

Earlier this year I left a program after four years of preparatory courses because I realized that the goal that I had been pursuing was not my calling. There are different ways to help others, and I realized as I approached 70 chronologically but feeling more like 38 physically and mentally that I needed to explore what aging means to me: it seems so sad that we go from the child who is asked "How old are you?" and who replies: "I'm eight but I will be nine in October" to the college student proud of being 21 and entering graduate school to the teacher who loves being 30, to the woman who knows 45 is the best yet, to the older woman looking forward to retirement, to the person who tries to hide her age with hair dye, make up, and sees the rest of her life as all down hill.

What? How can that be? Where has the enthusiasm for learning and becoming more and more of who we are gone? Yes, death is the end of this life, but until death comes, we need to live with the enthusiasm of that child looking forward and that young woman who dreamed huge dreams. We need to fly on our own course and celebrate our age because our age is not only a number, it is a marker of the new things we are doing.

I hadn't knitted for years, but seeing some beautiful yarn in a discount store two years ago, I felt called to knit. I bought it, and the much younger friend with me asked, what would I do with the yarn. I knitted a scarf and a hat for my daughter, then bought more yarn and knitted scarves for my husband's daughters, then ribbed hats for all 11 grandchildren, and then, not wanting to knit sweaters and stuff, I looked around and thought: knit for those who can use knitted things.

So to make this project large enough to make a difference, I took my knitting to church one Sunday, and sat in the parish hall and had a Tom Sawyer moment. People came over with their coffee, sat down, "what are you doing?", "I'm knitting scarves for people in a shelter," and then "can I help" they asked, and today, many of those people are in a group called Stitches. We knit; we crochet; we tie flannel into blankets for children; and we sew beautiful fabrics into fun lap quilts for children who use wheel chairs.

I look at all we have done and I realize that I spend as much time and effort and research on this project as I did when I was doing my dissertation or teaching at Boston University or returning to the job market as a marketing communications researcher, writer, and project manager.

You see, this isn't about working at a specific thing; it is all about doing what we are called to do, and I now realize that I have never done anything without having been called to do it. That doesn't end with retirement; that work isn’t reduced by aging. This is the soul looking out from within us for things to do to make the world a better place, a more humane place, a more fun place, a more loving place, . . . a more spiritual place.

Aging does have an impact on what I do: I have much more understanding of myself and what I can do, as well as more compassion for others. I am reminded of all that I have previously been called to do, and I realize that I will continue answering those calls for the rest of my life. (see June 18, 2011: Picture the Behavior and Make It Happen)

It was true then, and it is true now. Now more than ever in many different ways, ways of using my talents keep opening, much like the words of a song: "whatever spirit wants of me, I will be, I will be, I will be."

It took me many years to realize what the words of that song mean: we all have a calling that we can summarize in a few words like my learning new things and telling others. Knowing that calling, it is easier to recognize what is ours to do and doors keep opening, taking me into many ways of growing as me.

Stitches and Prayer Beads and Training Dogs

To me, each stitch, when I am knitting or sewing, is a prayer bead – and as with a prayer bead, I am going within as in meditation. This is a peaceful experience that takes me to my core. And from knitting, this extrapolates to other things, like working with the dogs: being at one with the dog I am working with, mind to mind, soul to soul. (see June 18, 2011 Picture the Behavior).

That article was not about being more present in myself, but the illustrations and the idea of clearing our minds in order to successfully work with our dogs is definitely about going within. to teach the dogs, we must clear our minds of all the daily stuff and to be open to "hearing" the dog and "being heard" by the dog -- This is an exercise in going within, and I deeply believe that we cannot train a dog without going within.

My work with the meditation value of handwork teaches me the same thing: we go within to do this work and to teach others to do this work. The work itself ends up helping others since we do our stitch work for people who benefit from the products.

Forgiveness is a way of living

One dog yelps, and the other dog keeps pushing the envelope. As the noise rises, the first dog backs away, looks at something else. In a matter of minutes, the two dogs are running around and playing with each other, tails high, eyes and ears alert, having fun with each other.

Just like these dogs, we have all had times when a friend or a relative has hurt us. We have all had times when a friend or a relative doesn’t seem to see that they have hurt us. But can we, do we, turn off the anger, forgiving the friend, when this happens to us?

For the dogs, forgiveness is a way of living. One dog in the household steps on a foot, grabs something that is not theirs, but when they do this, forgiveness is not far behind. Just as small children quickly get over what appeared to be a huge fight, so too the dogs let go and forgive.

You see, for the small children and for the dogs, forgiveness is not a matter of one insisting that the other has to be in the wrong. Forgiveness is simply the way life is.

We have no way of knowing, when a person says something that makes us feel that they are wrong, whether they are really wrong or not. Or if something they said that hurt us was really meant to hurt us. And even if it were meant to hurt us, does it make sense to go to all out war with the other person and cut them out of your life?

Dogs and children can teach us a lot about forgiveness. Watching them, we see that forgiveness is not about getting another to apologize or make up to us. Forgiveness is about letting go of the anger we feel for a particular person at a particular time. But if, like the children and the dogs, we just let go of the negatives, they won’t come back to haunt us over and over. They won’t harm the relationship.

Often times a friend or relative may say or do something that really annoys us. And what’s even worse, they don’t seem to know that they have hurt us. But whether or not they know they have hurt us, we need to forgive them. Forgiving is not about accepting what someone else did or said. It is about letting go of the anger we feel for the other. Until we let go of the anger, we will have difficulty moving into the future.

The hardest step of forgiveness is that we cannot know what the other person was thinking. In other words, we do not know their perspective. Usually the person wasn’t being mean or malicious or purposely nasty. Just as we unknowingly may have done things that hurt people in the past, and just as we have wanted forgiveness from others when we did something that offended or hurt, so too, we should be willing and able to forgive people who have hurt or offended us, regardless of whether they meant it or not. The dog does not ask the other dog if they meant it or not. The dog doesn’t hold a grudge. The dog moves on into the fullness of life..

Although it is never too late to make peace, sometimes it may take time to reconcile with another person because they may have lost some of their trust in us. In that case, we have to rebuild trust, and we cannot do that simply by saying “I forgive you” or “I am sorry.” Anyone can say they were wrong and ask for forgiveness. However, after a hurtful incident, we have to earn trust all over again.

Even if it takes a long time tp rebuild this trust, we need to remember that we should always be working on building healthy relationships. In order to do this, we have to be willing to understand that other people may do things that hurt us or get on our nerves without ever meaning to hurt us. The more we learn to let go, the less likely we will be to overreact or turn little incidents into major ones.

We also need to continually remind ourselves that having mutually respectful relationships is important in all areas of our lives It may take a lot of patience, love and commitment on our part to have such a relationship with some people, but if these people are, or ever have been, important to us, it's definitely worth the effort to build a good relationship..

Just watch the dogs and children at play. Be like the five year old child who was told by another child: “I don’t like you.” The child on the receiving end looked at the other child, and said. “That’s OK. I like you and you can still play in my sand.”

The Joy of Showing Your Own Dog, or How I Learned to Love the Show Ring

By Joyce Miller


Handling a show dog in the ring takes lots of practice, good teachers, lots more practice, and lots of experience. It requires a willingness to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. Above all, it requires a willingness to lose and know that in the losing you have learned something. And it requires that when you lose, you smile and congratulate the winners, knowing that tomorrow is another show.

When I was a child, my mother bred and showed Boxers. She loved showing her dogs, and the handler she emulated was Jane Kemp. She took me to shows with her, and I don’t think I ever saw her happier. But my father, who had chosen the breed and purchased a bitch with the agreement to show her, to breed her, and to return a puppy, had little use for the show ring, or as he called it, the beauty ring. To him, it was nothing more than a beauty pageant: the dogs and owners only had to walk around the ring and stand at attention. I grew up believing there was nothing to showing dogs.

I didn’t learn how wrong he was until I was in my 50s and had to show my first show Airedale. I look back with embarrassment on my first attempts in the ring: stiff, stilted, no clue of what it took to show off a dog or how to train a dog to do this. Handlers told me there was nothing to it. People who called themselves mentors told me what to do: loose lead, keep the head up, make sure that the dog is moving correctly, hold the head up, the tail up, and keep the dog stacked. Every time I entered the ring, I felt like “Baby” learning to dance in the movie, Dirty Dancing.

Handling classes were of no help: every Tuesday evening, I took my first show Airedale to handling class. No one gave us any instruction. We just lined up, kept moving up to the front of the line, stacked our dog, took it down and back, and went around to the end. Every week, I looked desperately around the class: What was I supposed to do? Who could I emulate? Each week, I picked someone who seemed to know what they were doing and tried to copy them. Even though many of the people in the class were very experienced, I did not have a clue whether I was copying something that would work in the Airedale ring or not. In short, to quote Corally Burmaster, a good friend of mine, all I was doing each week in handling class was rearranging my ignorance. My first show dog and my second show dog were finished by professional handlers.

Years later, with 16 Tom and Kay Lams workshops and four George Alston workshops under my belt, with one owner handled champion to my credit, and even teaching a successful handling class, I still did not feel confident in the ring. I was showing Dilys, a granddaughter of that first show Airedale, and when she was finally in good coat and condition, she decided that judges could not go over her. Looking back on this, I now know that she was reacting to my stress as the judge approached: “ooh, mum’s clenching and the judge is coming towards us.” She did this at three shows under three wonderful judges who gave her every opportunity. Each judge counseled me to get her out more frequently during the week. But I was doing that, and I knew that was not the problem.

The problem was me. I was tense and insecure in the ring. I had to get over that, and I had to do it with that dog. By then I was teaching a handling class the way I wanted handling classes organized: a six-week course focused on two weeks of gaiting, two weeks of presentation, and two weeks of putting it all together. In my classes, I had both AKC and UKC exhibitors. The UKC exhibitors seemed to be much more relaxed about showing than the AKC exhibitors. So I decided to go to a UKC show with them.

I entered a UKC show in Giddings Texas. I had the only Airedale entered. The judges were excellent, and the people were very friendly. The first judge I showed to gave us best of breed and then a Group 2. But more importantly, I was so relaxed when I went into the ring that my girl stood rock solid for exam, with her ears alert and her tail up. At the second of the three shows that weekend, she was so solid that she took Group 1 and then went Reserve Best In Show. And I was having so much fun and getting so many good wishes from all the exhibitors that I did not think twice about being nervous.

Not only did I have fun in the ring, but I got to talk to other exhibitors, learn about their breeds and what they were doing, and I got to talk with the judges. On Saturday night, we all went out to dinner with the judges. And the judges talked freely at the show and at dinner about what they liked, what they were looking for, and, when they were talking with us individually, they talked about what they liked about our dogs and what we were doing right as handlers. The atmosphere removed the fear and the nerves that I had always experienced at shows, fear and nerves made worse by all the critics I had outside the ring who pounced on what I did wrong and never told me what I did right. Above all, these judges renewed my confidence in my dog.

After the fun I had at that UKC show, I decided to try another venue, the International Shows that were held in Hutto TX on New Year’s weekend. This would be four shows in two days under four AKC judges, two from the United States, two from Canada. Once again, we were the only Airedale entered. And once again, we had a great time. At both the UKC and the International shows, there is no focus on grooming. My Airedale was well groomed, but instead of spending hours getting her ready for the ring, I kept track of time, and about 10 minutes before we were to go into the ring, I put her on the table, brushed her out, and took her to the ring.

At the International Shows, as at the UKC shows, the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed. Judges talked to exhibitors throughout the day, during breaks, and not only gave you written critiques in the ring, but gave you more information about how they saw your dog in informal conversations during breaks. At these shows, the first level championship requires three certificates from judges who rate your dog as conforming well to your standard, and one of those judges has to come from another country. If there are more dogs of your breed, you still compete to win classes and the breed, but every dog in the ring, regardless of whether they finish first or fourth, can get the coveted certificate. All weekend, my girl went Best of Breed (no competition) and then went on to go Group 1 at two shows to show in the BIS ring. So we ended up with 8 ring experiences and an International championship.

But the most significant part of these experiences was that I changed. I became a more relaxed handler, and I started having fun in the ring. I actually looked forward to going into the ring, and regardless of the outcome, I had fun. Win or lose, I praised my dog and I could feel the difference in me. I am sure that my dog felt it too.

Our next show was an AKC show. Instead of going to the show early, I got there in time to set up, brush my dog, and go in the ring. Instead of being fearful and nervous, I was eager to show my dog to the judge. And it worked: she won a four-point major under a top terrier judge. We went to three more shows together before she finished. We did not always win, and one weekend, we didn’t even win our class. But she finished with four majors, and, win or lose, both of us showed well and we had fun in the ring.

These non-AKC shows provide an excellent venue for building confidence in yourself and your dog. They also provide good venues for introducing a new dog to the show ring and for introducing puppies to the show atmosphere. Both UKC and International shows have classes for three to six month puppies, and the judges are very good with the puppies. Other exhibitors make much of the puppies, and the casual, sometimes chaotic, atmosphere of these less organized shows give puppies great experiences.

And you come home with ribbons and medallions that your dogs recognize as significant. By the end of our first weekend at a UKC show, when the last judge handed me our huge best of breed rosette, Dilys grabbed the rosette and pranced out of the ring. This was her rosette, and it was meant to hang on her crate! She and I had become an equally invested team.

To learn more about The International All Breed Canine Association of America (IABCA) and its shows, go to http://www.internationaldogshow.com/ for show requirements, registration information, and a current show calendar.

To learn more about United Kennel Club shows, go to http://ukcdogs.com/. Click on Events and keep clicking until you get to the conformation show calendar to find shows in your location. UKC has different groups than AKC, but our group is the Terrier group so we have no confusion.

Dogs that are AKC registered can be cross registered in both of these registries with their AKC registration number or certificate. UKC allows day-of show entries, but you save money by entering in advance.

To learn about the experiences of others who show in both AKC and UKC, join a show list, such as the Let’s Discuss Judging list at www.groups.yahoo.com and check out the archives under UKC.

8 Tips for Preparing to Compete with Your Dog

By Joyce Miller

The first Week of the Airedale (WOTA) 2003 captured the imagination of Airedale lovers worldwide. We thrilled at Airedales tracking, trailing, flushing and retrieving. We enjoyed the dogs in the companion day events. We applauded the rescue Airedales as they paraded by us. We marveled at how uniquely Airedales do obedience and agility. We applauded the Airedale drill team. And we admired the dogs in the conformation ring.

What does it take to train a dog for a competitive event like this?

After WOTA, I interviewed Mary Barker, the winner of the most versatile handler award and the owner of the dogs that won most versatile and runner up most versatile Airedales. In that interview, she outlined eight tips for training dogs to compete in events like this.

1. Use soft words. Be patient. Always keep your voice pleasant. Never raise your voice. And use corrections that give your dog specific information on how to do a specific exercise. For example, Mary sometimes used a wooden spoon coated with peanut butter to show one of her Airedales exactly how to do something.

2. Keep it simple and picture the behavior you want your dog to do. “Form a mental picture in your mind of what you want your dog to do,” Mary said. “With that picture, you can give corrections in such a way that you help your dog understand what to do.” Not only does Mary visualize her dogs doing an exercise perfectly, she pictures them doing it with a happy attitude and with their tails and ears up.

3. Make training fun. Since Mary competes in obedience, agility and tracking, she keeps training fun by mixing exercises from different sports in each training session. This helps her dogs pay close attention to her and have fun in every session. So mix things up and don’t overdo one thing in any one session.

4. Don’t rush into competition. Like a good teacher, Mary takes her time and makes sure that her students (her dogs), are ready to do what she wants before she puts them to the test.

5. Plan in advance. Mary attributes her success with her dogs to her professional experiences as a teacher and an engineer. She focuses on the details and breaks each task down into many small details. When she is training a dog, she works on different parts of an exercise every week. When she and the dogs have learned all the details of a specific exercise, she pulls the whole exercise together. To train for WOTA 2003, she planned every detail, from which events she would compete in, how she and her dogs would prepare, what distractions she needed to prepare her dogs for, and more. She broke every exercise into goals and then identified the individual things that she needed to do with each dog and did them.

6. Work every day. No matter how short or long, work your dog in some aspect of what they will be doing in a competition every single day. Mary and her dogs worked six nights a week for six months to prepare for WOTA 2003. Every night, they did routines and Mary focused on one specific thing in one exercise: heeling, head up, sits, downs, weave poles, etc. until she was satisfied that she and the dog had that part of the exercise down pat.

7. Be ready for anything. Mary says, “It’s the trainer’s responsibility to expose their dog to all the things that they may encounter in the competition.” Because WOTA 2003 was an outdoor event and Mary and her dogs were accustomed to competing indoors, she moved all her training outdoors as soon as the snow was off the ground in Wisconsin. “That only gave me a month,” she said, “but it was enough.” Then when she arrived at Purina farms, she noticed that the grass was longer than AKC regulations permit and the longer grass really bothered one of her dogs. So she took the time to practice with that dog in the longer grass until he ignored it.

8. Find lots of ways to measure your progress. Use fun matches to determine where you and your dog need more work. Ask friends to run you through routines so you can check on how you are doing. Work with your dogs until what you do matches the picture in your mind of each routine.

Work and Fun with Dear Jubilee

Teaching Children How to Be Safe Around Dogs


As an AKC Canine Ambassador, Neisha and Kate, my Airedales, helps me teach children about dogs. We visit schools, summer camps, Libraries, and Junior Girl Scout, Brownie and Daisy troops to teach children about being safe around dogs, how to take good care of dogs, and how to help dogs in their communities.

Some areas have serious problems with loose dogs, and I often find that many of the children that I talk to are afraid of dogs. Some have been chased by these dogs and knocked down. I talk to them about how to be safe around dogs, about never approaching a loose dog, about telling an adult about a loose dog so the adult could call for help for the dog, what to do if a loose dog is running towards them, and what to look for before approaching a dog.

Using advice from another AKC Canine Ambassador, I tell the children to be sure they can see a collar attached to a leash held by a person, or more briefly Collar - Leash - Person and I get the children to chant those three words so that they will remember to look for the collar, the leash and the person.

I tell the children that when they see a loose dog coming towards them, they need to stand still and “be a tree,” either crossing their arms on their chest or putting their hands in their pockets. And I tell them not to stare at the dog, but to look to the side or down at the ground. I tell them about a time when I was a child and two St. Bernards loved to chase me when I rode my bicycle by their house. I tell them how I learned to stop, be very still and firmly tell the dogs to go home. Amazingly to me as a child, the dogs stopped running towards me, turned and ran towards their house. They never chased me again. I tell the children how that worked for me and helped me get over my fear of dogs that were not part of my family.

I demonstrate how to ask permission to pet a dog (as long as it has a collar, leash and person) first with an Airedale stuffed toy and then with Neisha or kate. I show them how to determine even if they get permission whether the dog seems happy to be petted by the child, how to let the dog sniff their closed fist, and how to pet the dog under its chin or on its chest, and not on top of its head.

Then I let them approach me and my dog one by one. They are always so cute, and at this last visit, a child who had been knocked down by a loose dog was one of the first children to approach us. Neisha and Kate stand quietly, and lets each child approach them, sniff the children’s fists, and let the children pet them. When a child forgets to pet under the dog’s chin and reaches over to pet her head, both Neisha and Kate do just what I had demonstrated with the stuffed Airedale: the dogs follow the child’s hand with their nose making it impossible for the children to pet their head because they are so busy sniffing their hand.

When every child has had an opportunity to pet the dog, we relax with her, usually by sitting on the floor around her with one child at a time stroking her, giving her a treat, or just talking to her. Both dogs love this part of the visit, and often initiate it by lying down in the midst of the children.

All too soon, our visits are over. I give each child one or two AKC coloring books, one about safety around dogs and the other about responsible dog ownership, and a bookmark with reminders about caring for a dog. Then we pack up and head home..

All together, a great outing and a great experience. Neisha and Kate seem to enjoy doing this as much as I do.