Our
Dogs earn their Herding Instinct Certificates!
Spirit
Ridge's 'Paws for Literacy®'
Programme
The
Spirit Ridge K9 Crew
Client
Testimonials and Newsprint Articles about Spirit Ridge
Rescue News: We
have no rescued dogs available for adoption!
Important Reading:
Articles
of Interest to Dog 'Owners'!
Our
Rescued Friends' Hall of Fame
Our Partner
Links
In Memorium
KOAL
(Sept 1995-May 2008)
Paws for Literacy® Programme
On January 24, 2009, Spirit Ridge K9 Training & Rescue launched its new community-based initiative in cooperation with the Wellington County Library, Hillsburgh Branch staff.
Our `Paws for Literacy®` programme, whose sole objective is to bring children closer to books by using specifically selected and trained dogs called Literacy Assistance Dogs, was launched in conjunction with Family Literacy Day.
Our first date with the children was a resounding success! On January 24th we hosted 21 children from our community - aged 4 to 12 years old - who took turns reading to our Literacy Assistance Dogs for a minimum of twenty minutes at a time. For select pictures of our wonderful Literacy Assistance Dogs working with their reading buddies, please click here.
We were thrilled to be joined by our Mayor, Mr. Rod Finnie, who took the time to pose for a picture with us and our working dogs (see picture below).
We expect to be repeating this worthy endeavour later this year. For those interested in pre-registering for the next event, please call Donna or Leah at the Hillsburgh Library (tel: 519-855-4010 or, via e-mail: Hillsburghlib@county.wellington.on.ca).
For the Erin Advocate newspaper article announcing our Paws for Literacy® event, click here.
For a brief text with photos published by 'Dufferin Now', February 2009 edition, click here.
(photo courtesy of Carla
Buckingham)
Our Paws for Literacy®
volunteers with their Literacy Assistance Dogs, some of the children
and Town of Erin Mayor, Rod Finnie, on January 24, 2009 (from
left to right,
upper row: Dr. Carol Graham with Matisse (Great Pyrenees Dog), Jim
Tsitanidis (Spirit Ridge Head Trainer), Linda with Charlie (Shitzhu), Susan with
Chance (Great Pyrenees dog), Pam and Jackson (Border Collie);
lower row, from left to right: Suzanne Adams (Spirit ridge's
Agility Trainer) with Spirit Ridge`s Koukla (Belgian Shepherd Dog), Brenda and Ripley (Chesapeake Bay
Retriever) and Mayor Finnie
