Sometimes I visit other classrooms at Noe Middle School. I visited the ESL (English as a Second Language) classroom in September. Tuesday I visited the “bad” classroom – or so people label it. I want to say here that we are all beings first and have behaviors second. So these are students with possible “bad” behavior. If you manage the emotion and behavior correctly, there are few if any problems. I could be a “bad” dog if you give me the right circumstances. Mom has always worked with students who have this label and they get along well. She expected to find good things and I did, too. We were excited to visit this classroom.

How did our invitation occur? One student, with whom we worked last year, chose our visit as a reward for making honor roll. She wanted to learn more about me and share that information with her class. That was a very special gift she chose to share! We were very honored and carefully prepared a few extra things for this visit. We packed a vest, a book, and some yummy treats that smelled good.
Promptly at 11:00 we arrived.
There were a turns of heads over
shoulders, a low murmur of voices and a greeting from the teacher when we entered. We created a space for ourselves, grabbed a chair, set down our bag and proceeded with introductions. It was that simple. Mom and I walked to the first student. I sat. “I’m Mrs. Nord and this is Bella. Pleased to meet you, ” Mom said cheerfully to the first student. He cautiously stuck his hand in hers and they shook. “I’m —–.”. Mom repeated the name softly and said, ” I like that. Please help me remember. I am good with faces but not with names. Give Bella a pat if you want.” We greeted each student and then returned to our spot in the front of the room. I plopped down and Mom settled into a chair. We were ready!
Mom began by telling the story of how she chose the Newfie breed, how she searched for me online and our first meeting. With small groups, she has a standard policy, she will pause and answer one round of questions from everyone. This lead to our only “incident” during the entire class. One young man did not like that policy and tossed his pencil towards the floor. Mom raised an eyebrow and the teacher whisked him out of the room. (Let’s be real, folks, this reaction could happen in any classroom. It was a tiny action and the student did not make a peep as he left ). Mom continued to chat and share information regarding our life together, training, service dogs and therapy dogs. The students were Pawsome! They took turns asking questions, were patient and supported each other by calmly repeating information, and made one request: to see tricks. The teacher and student returned just in time to join us for the demonstration.
Mom thought that was a good idea for the kids to see what a team could do. She also thought that the students might get a special reward at the end of the demonstration. The first thing I demonstrated was “wait” using my water bowl. I am trained to wait until given a command to eat or drink even when my food or water is put in front of me. The kids were impressed!

That is the cool portable pink water bowl. Mom always carries bottled water for me as well. Then Mom showed them heel, turns, sit, down, bang and roll over! The students were really excited. So was I. Mom brought my fav Nutro Blueberry treats – and she wasn’t afraid to hand them out!

The students all began to chatter.
“I want to try! Can I make her go bang? Can I pat her?”.
Mom turned her head back and forth like she was watching a crazy tennis match!
“Oh, no! I can’t follow when all of you speak at once. I can’t say yes. Please, stop, raise your hands since this is very important and I am giving permission”.
There was instant silence and eight hands were raised. I looked at the class approvingly and Mom nodded. “Super!”. She walked to the boy who had returned to class. She held out a treat and said, “Here, smell this”.
He wrinkled his nose and refused saying that it would smell awful. Meanwhile, my nose was quivering in anticipation! I was beginning to drool. I wanted a treat! Mom told him that Aunt Krista liked the smell if the blueberry so much that she almost ate one until Mom told her it was a dog treat. While the rest of the class laughed at Mom’s story, the student bravely and cautiously sniffed the treat. “OOOh…it does smell good”.
He stretched out a hand to me and I rubbed my head into his palm. He did a “sit trick” with me. Each student got two tries with me. I performed what they asked. One student did four different tricks and received a spontaneous applause from his classmates.
We had a fantastic visit with this group of students. They were so polite, asked excellent questions, maintained interest, and then followed directions perfectly with me. I felt so safe I was willing to try my hardest and do new things, too. This was the first time I have ever worked tricks for other people! These are special kids, but not always for the reasons people may think!

Woofs and wags,

Bella