School Spotlight: Dogs are New Glarus students' best friends - Madison.com

PAMELA COTANT | For the State Journal madison.com | | Posted: Monday, January 24, 2011 1:00 pm

NEW GLARUS — When teacher Christine Douty brought in a dog as therapy for her special needs students, she didn’t imagine where it would lead and the impact it would have on the entire New Glarus Middle School.

As an example, when the golden lab, Rudy, has wandered outside of her classroom on occasion, other students have brought it back.

“It is something we kind of jointly all look after,” said Douty, who thinks the experience contributes to a community feeling in the school.

Douty started bringing her family dog to school because she thought it would help her students with self-esteem. Students who struggle with communication skills can form bonds with a dog. In addition, dogs can provide a real life reason to work on academic skills when they are used for a reading program and students keep track of the animals’ expenses.

As fringe benefits, Douty said the dog “automatically increases social status” for her students and allows them a chance to be on the giving end of help rather than on the receiving end.

One of her former students, Kegan French, who is now in ninth grade but continues to work in the dog program, started working with Rudy, who eventually was certified as a therapy dog through an organization called Therapy Dogs International. Then he started taking it to a local nursing home called the New Glarus Home to visit with the residents.

Later a program was started at the New Glarus Elementary School, where Kegan would read books to the students and they would read to the dog.

Then a year ago, Kegan’s parents bought him his own dog, Duchess, a black lab and springer spaniel mix, and she went to the elementary school. At the same time, third grade teacher Michelle Arnett continued to use Rudy in her classroom.

At the beginning of this school year, Arnett applied for and received a grant through the New Glarus Excellence in Education Fund and had her own family dog, a Pekingese named Beverly, join the training program in Douty’s room. The grant allowed for the hiring of a trainer, Chad Fahey, who owns Charlie’s Bark Park in Belleville, and now he is working with three of Douty’s students to train the dogs.

The students also continue to go to the nursing home once a week.

One student working with the dogs, sixth-grader Cole Steiner, said he has enjoyed getting a better understanding of the dogs and being an example of how to treat the animals with respect.

For seventh-grader Bradley Bartels, a highlight was wearing a Santa hat and visiting the nursing home with Beverly because he said he likes “bringing joy to other people with the dogs.”

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