Officer Buckle and Gloria

Spring Break seemed to put us out of sorts.  We were not able to post as much as we would have liked and so we need to catch up on some Dewey stories.

Right before we headed off for Spring Break, we had the great pleasure of being invited down to Lower Division to read to the Kindergarten.  We had a special book picked out: Officer Buckle and Gloria. It's about a safety officer who gets a service dog to help him with his school visits.  Little does he know just how much Gloria the dog is doing to rev up his speeches!

Dewey contemplating the book Officer Buckle and Gloria.

Dewey was very excited about going down to Lower.  Well, Dewey doesn't get charged up about anything, but he did seem very happy about the opportunity.  He loves the little kids.

Some of the students pointing at Dewey. 

The students were VERY excited when they saw that Dewey was part of story time.

Dewey and I at the front of the class with Mrs. Edwards to the left.

I had to explain that Dewey was going to listen to the story. We were HOPING that Dewey was going to be a good boy and listen quietly.

Dewey sitting in front of me as I explained to the students about the story time rules.

Dewey sits down very politely in the front row.  All of the kids in the first row are SUPER excited as they are the closest to Dewey. We start the book.

Dewey is sitting in front of me and staring up.

I start to read with lots of animation, after all, I am a frustrated actress living inside of a librarian.  So, my many dramatic voices come pouring out in the different characters of the book.

Dewey gets very interested and gets up to take a look

Dewey sits up to take a closer look at the book.

I tone it down a bit.

I go back to reading, Dewey sits by my side.

Dewey sits down at my side, but soon, I have reached a crisis in the book and Dewey becomes worried for the characters.

Dewey is standing and looking at me wondering why I am so worried.

Officer Buckle has reached a crisis in the book!  I tell Dewey that he is just going to have to sit down and wait to hear the end like everyone else.  The students laugh.

Dewey making sure I am ok.

Dewey slowly goes into a sit. Then into a down.   He is waiting for the story to calm down.  What will Officer Buckle do? What will Gloria do?

Everybody is looking at the book to see what Gloria is going to do, including Dewey.

In the end, Officer Buckle makes the right decision and he and Gloria become partners again and save the school from safety disasters.

View from the back of the story time of everyone watching me flip the pages.

And Dewey? Well, Dewey got to dream about being the best guide dog ever because he had fallen asleep. Finally.

Reading To Lower Division

Last week we had a great change of pace: we got to visit the lower division library!  I was going to read the story, but Coach decided that he was going to be a wiggle worm and was just to wiggly to let be alone by my side, so the lower division librarian Kathleen Edwards read the stories to the kindergarten classes while Coach and I listened with the children.

Kathleen reads a story in her rocking chair while Coach gnaws  his nylabone beside her in coat.

I must say though, I am not an idiot.  I was prepared for something like this: the 10 am twisties. I had brought a nylabone and his linus blanket with us.  He finally settled into the nylabone and was very calm. 

Shot of Coach with his bone and the children looking up at Kathleen.

The kids were thrilled to see him.  Even with him given them the brush off and chewing his toy, they were still excited to be in the same room with him, such is his celebrity.

Coach in front of the rocking chair with a sassy look on his face.

Sometimes I worry that it gives him a big head.

A more subdued closeup of Coach, he's feeling more relaxed after some bone chewing.

Mostly, though, he was a good boy.  Because he was wiggly, we didn't allow any petting.  Instead we gave out our brand new Coach storytime stickers!

The sticker that we gave out: it has a closeup of Coach with storytime with Coach printed over his head and a small Southeastern Guide Dog logo on it.

They were a big hit with everyone!

Second Graders Rock!

Today, I got the most amazing thank you note from the second grade class where Jam, Jan and I went to talk the other day.  Here it is up on my office door:

Thank you letter with a large dog surrounded with bones.

 The message says:

Dear Mrs. McLean, Mrs. Connors and Jam, Thank you so much for coming to visit.  We loved learning about guide dogs! Love, (and then they signed their names)  They also all wrote one thing they learned from my talk on a bone that they placed around the picture of the dog on the card.  I took individual photos of each of their bones.  They are below.

Guide dogs can sit, stand and stay.

I learned that guide dogs can lead blind people.

Guide dogs are careful.

Guide dogs sometimes have to disobey.

I learned that they test their gait. (I'm really impressed she/he remembered this vocab word!)

Guide dogs help people.

Guide dogs can be silly some times. (Oh, how true!)

Guide dogs are smart.

Guide dogs get trained on the board walk. (This refers to our conversation on intelligent disobedience and one of the ways they do that is on a pier, which I think she/he mistook for a boardwalk.  Close enough, I say!)

I learned guide dogs get trained to save people.

Guide dogs go where ever there (sic) owner goes!

Jam is really funny. (I love this kid!)

When the guide dog does not make it, they go to the hospital and make them feel good!!!  (I think this refers to our conversation about career change dogs and what other things the dogs do if they aren't guide dogs.  She has a little heart drawn at the end of her sentence.)

Jam is very curious.

Guide dogs know how to stop people from going in the street.

Close up of message!

Close up of names.

I love Lower Division!!

Anatomy of an Interview

On Tuesday, I got an email request from a very polite 5th grader for an interview. There were three of them and they wanted to interview me about Her Royal Highness Berkeley. Would I be available on Wednesday?

I said, Of course. I mentioned to Christina who was coming to interview me and she said, "You are going to love them. They are so cute and vivacious!" She said the little girl who had been coordinating the interviews and who seemed to be in charge was especially delightful and was a real charmer. "You'll really like her."

They showed up promptly at 2 pm in the library and I brought them over to say hello to Christina who gave them all hugs before I brought them into my office. I shut the door and had the girls all take a seat. Then I took HRH's coat off.

"Oh, we weren't going to pet with the coat on!" They seemed a bit shocked that I had taken it off. "We knew not to pet her."

"I knew that. I just figured you might like to have some fun with her since you came for an interview." HRH started to walk around under the table, knocking them about with her tail.

"Her tail just hit me!" One of the girls said and laughed. The other girl just held her hands under the table and waited for HRH to walk by her. It didn't take long for them all to start laughing. They were a pretty cheerful bunch.

Then they started in on their questions:

"Why did you start raising guide dogs?"
(We wanted to do something together and we knew it had to be something we both loved and we both love dogs.)

"What is the hardest thing to teach her?"
(Right now, stay and no noise.)

"Has she learned more commands than Bingo?"
(Short answer, YES.)

"Does she go everywhere with you?" Which led to "Do you take her to the bathroom with you?"
(Yes. I then told them about how HRH loves toilet paper, especially as you are pulling it off the roll. So, it can be a little embarrassing to be in a public toilet and all of a sudden you hear someone yelling, "NO! NO!" They thought that was pretty funny.)

"When she goes to a blind person, what will she be able to do for them?"
(I told them about the find the elevator command, about the concept of intelligent disobedience where they would stop a blind person from crossing a street if there was a car coming even if the blind person said to cross and how they were trained to look up and protect their person from getting hit in the head.)

Then there were some off topic questions about blind people that I did my best to field such as,

"How does the blind person get the dog food in the bowl and not spill it on the floor?" and its follow-up, "And if they do, would Berkeley just eat the food up off the floor?"
(I talked about how blind people live on their own and eat meals just like we do. That they learn special tricks for pouring things into bowls and glasses so they don't spill. But, I said, if something were to fall on the floor, HRH would probably eat it up.)

"How does the blind person know when the dog has to go to the bathroom?"
(I told them that HRH has a very strict schedule about when she gets fed and when she goes out to the bathroom. That helps prevent accidents.)

Then before they left, I asked them if they wanted their photo with her Highness. They said yes.

Here HRH is giving the leader a very special kiss instead of sitting down like she is supposed to do.

And then they all got really silly, including HRH and started laughing.

Finally, I had to get a cookie and hold it in my mouth to get HRH to pay attention. She was having too much fun with the papparazzi. She's such a sucker for the press. But then, they love her!

Her Royal Highness Is Presented to the Lower Division

On Friday of first week of school, I presented Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley to the Lower Division (see photo above). I first walked in with her and then picked her up (there were parent complaints last year that their kids couldn't see Bingo, because he was on the floor and their child was at the back of the room sitting. Sigh. So, you will see what we did to try to try to ward off those complaints this time.)
I showed them the video first. It was cute. They all started singing the words to Train's "Soul Sister" song. 8-). They liked the Lemon video clip. Then instead of telling them the rules, I wanted them to tell me what they remembered, because I had a feeling that they remembered everything.

When the St. Pete Times reporter was here on Wed. HRH was in the hallway and a LD class walked by. I had HRH sit down as they passed by. Every child was completely silent and did not make one attempt to get her attention or try to call her Bingo. They were Fabulous! So the first thing I did after the video, was ask which class passed us on Wed.

Long pause. No hands were raised.

"Come on. A class passed us by. You were perfect. You did all the right things! You remembered all the rules. Which class walked by us on Wed.?" Slowly a few hands went in the air, then a few more. "Everyone, let's give them the library clap for being so smart and remembering all the rules!" Everyone raised both hands and waved them in the air violently.

Then I asked them if they remembered what item of Harry Potter's was HRH's blue coat similar to? 50 hands shot up in the air. I was looking for one boy in particular, but couldn't find him in the sea of faces. So I chose a little girl who seemed to be vibrating with the answer:

"It is the same as Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility, which means that you can't see her when she has it on, which means that you can't call her name or act like you notice her." She took a deep breath. Good. She didn't pass out.

"Excellent answer! That's exactly right." Well, it went on like this with Lower divisioners getting it EXACTLY right all the time. That means that the ONE time I presented the rules to them, they MEMORIZED them and they STAYED memorized for an ENTIRE YEAR. They even remembered the specific question I wanted them to ask when she was out of coat: "Is this a good time?" I find that pretty impressive.

HRH, not so much. She just wanted off the darn cart.