Hello, hope you’re well? I recently received a bunch of fan
mail…
...well 29 letters and these are due to the fact L & I visited our local Primary School in Burghclere to
meet the Robin class and explain to them about my partnership with L and what I have been trained to do. We
visited on 12th September, as the children started back for the new
term.
This visit wasn’t like my visit to the other primary school,
as this time I went in to the classroom and we got to talk and answer questions.
I even got to show how well mannered & obedient I am. L introduced us and I lay down at the
front of the class. The children asked lots of questions, all politely raising
their hands first and I was able to relax and snooze during this part. Some of my favourite questions to L were:
1) Is diabetes contagious?
2) Can Frodo roll over?
3) Does Frodo always have to wear his coat?
4) Can I stroke Frodo?
5) If you were a police woman, would you have to
have a police dog AND Frodo to help you?
6) Can Frodo smell your blood level in wind and
rain, when you’re on walks?
7) Can I stroke Frodo?
8) Have you ever been bitten by a dog?
9) Can I stroke Frodo now
10) Does Frodo steal your Dad’s socks?
We stayed at the school with the children for an hour or so.
The best part of the visit was when Robin class all went back to their own
seats and I got to walk around the tables to get strokes and cuddles off of
each of them! Lots of them also had pet dogs so I hope to maybe meet them when
I’m out on my walks…
As it all went so well, we’ll be going back to do future
visits and the children can ask more questions, share more stories about their
own dogs and give me even more cuddles. Their teacher Miss Tucker was also very
nice and made me feel quite at home. She was a key part in arranging our visit
and hopefully more visits in future. During part of L’s talk the children were very fast at thinking on their
feet and gave some great answers to L’s
Question: “Name the places where Frodo as
an Assistance Dog can go, but where pet dogs can’t?”
A few answers: The shops, the cinema, the library, Tesco, a
restaurant, school, the office, the gym, the theatre, on a plane, trains,
buses, holidays abroad, the beach, hospital, the dentist…
Apparently my visit and the talk about what I do to help L, was just as fun for the children as it
was for us. Miss Tucker was able to use our visit to help with PSHE (Personal,
Social & Health Education) & RRR (Rights Respect Responsibility) learning.
The charity has provided a resource to show how visits from dogs like me can
aid with different parts of the national curriculum & link “teaching and learning opportunities to real life and
purposeful learning experiences.” If you are interested to learn more then details of
this can be found here: http://medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk/schools.html
OR…maybe you can look online and see if there is a Medical
Detection Dogs Support Group based near you? I know that several have Facebook
pages (with my friends featured) and it may be possible for you to contact one
of these groups to see if a dog like me can come visit your school? Did you
know it is even possible for School’s to sponsor one of the Medical Detection
Dog puppies (who are in training to be partnered with a person in need and be
saving lives on a daily basis). The school gets to pick a Kennel name for the
puppy (although the dog will also retain his/her training name) and receives
updates of what the puppy is doing and other information from the charity. http://medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk/sponsor.html
Anyway, I had a great time visiting Burghclere Primary
School and I really hope we get to go back and meet my new school friends too
to share more stories of my adventures with them. I know that they want to see
me too as I have all 29 Thank-You letters (with even more questions) to prove
it. AND that also just goes to show how the special job I do not only helps L every day but can also help educate
members of the community (of any age). These letters must have helped with
their English lessons too!!! If anyone from Robin class is reading this,
firstly please tell all your class (& Miss Tucker) that I was very
impressed with how well behaved you all were & how friendly and that I
would award each of your letters to L
& I with a Gold Star.
Hope to see you soon!
Frodo
P.S. I’ve attached some parts of the letters & pictures
so you can all see how great they are. How much the children paid attention to what
they were told about me and also how great and well behaved I am! Obviously, this is just a sample
selection and I haven’t picked any favourites x
I'm now going to be a it busy replying to them all....
