Our two most recent training handbooks are complete. Tips on Making Your Dog Incredible, and Shaping Your Dogs Behavior. They are $3.95 apiece. Not bad.  Our lastest family addition, Brook Lynn Macallister Domalaog, Has also arrived. Congradulation Kim and Matt.

What Benjamin Cosor Elementary School in Fallsburg NY has to say about Lady

For immediate release:     February 9, 2007

Fallsburg, NY 12733

The Lady is a Champ at Cosor Elementary

Through the efforts of librarian Sarah Mitchell and Assistant Principal Catherine Tavormina, Benjamin Cosor Elementary School hosted Lady, a trained white shepherd Therapy Dog at several assemblies on February 9.  Lady’s life began as a foundling on an abandoned highway in southeastern Pennsylvania seven years ago.  Nurse Kathy Miller adopted her and started her training.  Now with a certification as a Trained Therapy Dog in her paw, Lady came to entertain the pre-Kindergarten through 6 graders in Fallsburg.

Chris Williams, author of “One Incredible Dog! Lady,” told her story while his wife Sue showed slides.  The dog works with ailing patients young and old in hospitals and nursing homes. She brings joy and support to people learning how to walk again, to those recovering from joint replacement, and to those in need of comfort during chemotherapy treatments. 

Mr. Williams encourages the children to think about how they write stories by relating how he wrote this book.  He instructs them about using their minds to think of ideas for stories, and then to construct the story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.  He tells them to be open to the feedback of their parents and teachers on what they write just as he did with his book editor.  He then introduced Kathy Miller and Lady.

Ms. Miller told the story of how she saved Lady’s life.  She wanted the audience to be aware that 7 million dogs are destroyed each year because they are abandoned or abused!  People need to think carefully how much it takes to raise a dog and to have patience with them.  She then told the children that Therapy Dogs work in hospitals with many patients, Service Dogs work with one owner such as a guide dog, Rescue Dogs find injured people or criminals, and Reading Dogs help children learn to read. 

Angel, a shepherd-border collie mix, is Service Dog for Kathy Miller’s husband Les.  Angel is sensitive to changes in body chemistry and can tell if Les is about to have a seizure.  Reading dogs sit patiently with children who have difficulty learning how to read.  Children lose their sense of self-consciousness and focus on reading entire chapters to their canine audience.  Remarkable improvement occurs in reading levels, even in children with disabilities.

The highlight of the day was Lady responding to some of the 120 commands that Kathy trained her with over the past two years.  Kids laughed when Lady barked and barked to encourage a young student volunteer to begin using a walker after he kept refusing to try to walk.  She refused to eat her favorite food treat even when children yelled for her to eat it.  Only when Kathy gave the proper command did Lady devour the beef jerky.  Every child got to pat Lady upon leaving the school gymnasium.

It was a day filled with learning—about careers in training dogs, in protecting and being humane to them, in nursing people back to health, in writing stories and books, in bringing joy and love to school children, and in having compassion.  It was one incredible day at Benjamin Cosor Elementary School!

We had a great week last week. Lady and I saw over 1000 children. We included in our presentation, humane education, proper care of canines, therapy dog demos, dog tricks and elementary reading support. All the things Angelhalls is about.

Angel our newest addition though not new to the family alerted on my husbands seizure. Pretty incredible.

March is going to be a busy month. We have a school presentation, a bookstore, and a hospital fete.