Dogs help struggling kids learn new tricks

Andrew Mathieson
DOGS are helping troubled students at Geelong region primary schools to improve their reading and attendance rates in an Australian first.
Primary school children are reading to the household pets rather than teachers under the unique Classroom Canines pilot program.
Geelong Delta Partners coordinator Vanda Iwanowski said the program was an extension of dogs visiting sick children, the frail elderly and the disabled in hospital and nursing facilities.
“If a child isn’t very good at reading they think the person listening to them is going to be critical,” she said.
“But we can take that child off into a corner, they can read to the dog and the dog is non-judgemental.”
Ms Iwanowski said Deakin University would run a study on Classroom Canines to gauge its impact on the performance of students.
Newtown and Roslyn primary schools were the first to sign up last year, with the program now spreading to another six across Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula.
However, Ms Iwanowski said education bureaucrats had tried to stop the spread of Classroom Canines despite local school principals backing the program.
The voluntary organisation hoped to spread the program nationally, she said.
The schools had reported “amazing” results.
“Kids that didn’t want to come to school all of a sudden wanted to go especially the day the dogs were there,” Ms Iwanowski said.
Volunteer numbers had increased from eight to 70 in less than a year but Classroom Canines was still looking for more volunteers.
Ms Iwanowski said pet owners first applied to the program before their dogs were assessed for suitability.
Dogs who passed the test then underwent a rigorous training workshop with their owners.
Mrs Iwanowski said she first realised dogs could lead owners to better health and wellbeing after suffering a brain tumour 10 years ago while her two children were also both seriously ill.
“My youngest son said he had the answer and he went out and got a puppy,” she said.
“After we got this dog both my children recovered and I had my surgery.
“It was just one of those things that you couldn’t put a finger on.
“It was just that our focus had changed instead of going to doctors and running around on the internet for solutions.”