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| Name: |
Bufford
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Age: |
Eighteen months old
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| Gender: |
Male |
Breed: |
Boxer |
| Home: |
Anchorage, Alaska, USA |
My
pet Boxer Bufford is special because he is not only my pet, but the
pet of our classroom. Bufford is a therapy dog in a High School
special ed. program. He goes to work with me every morning and greets
the kids with kisses. Bufford is loved by all of our students and staff
throughout our school.
Bufford goes to school with me every day, and each day he greets the
students like he has not seen them in a month! We have kids with
behavioral and emotional issues in this class and since Bufford has been
with us full time we have seen a 90% decrease in negative behaviors.
The kids walk Bufford to the office to get our mail, making stops along
the way answer questions about him and let students pet him, then they
stop in the nurses office so Nurse Panna can get kisses and wrestle with
him and finally they pass through the administrative staff offices and
wait while he gets treats and kisses and then they get our mail and we
walk back! Many students in our school now come to our room to see
Bufford, allowing our kids to interact with students that they would
not normally have any contact with. Our kids can answer any question
asked about Bufford and love to talk about him.
Bufford is not contained within our room, he is allowed to roam
on his own and seems to know where he is needed most. He will go to a
depressed student and put his head on their lap or lay at their feet.
If a student is agitated, he will take his ball to them or try to entice
them in a game of keep-away (he thinks everyone likes this game!!)
As far as personality, Bufford is a clown, loves to give kisses, loves
to sit on the kids and nibble their ears and make them giggle. the
louder they giggle...the wetter their ears get! Bufford loves to be the
center of attention, and has trained our kids to be his personal
servants! The kids insist he will only eat his food if they put bacon
bits (my lunch) on it, he will only drink bottled water (from the
bottle!), and every time he looks at his leash he needs to go outside.
Bufford's favorite trick is going for "piggy-back" rides. If someone is
kneeling, sitting or squatting on the floor Bufford will go over, put
his paws over their shoulders and grip, and put his head against their
face. He wants you to stand up and walk around with him, and you can
actually feel him holding on with his front paws. Unfortunately, because
Bufford is now fourteen months old and weighs in at 80 pounds I can't let him
do this at school, the risk of injuring him or the students is too high.
Every once in awhile, he can con Nurse Panna into a piggyback ride, but
she has the back for it! He also loves to play catch with a tennis
ball, he has a ball launcher that if the kids set it he will jump on it
and catch the ball in mid-air, he also loves balloons. If someone is
blowing up a balloon, he can hear it a block away and will drop
everything to go play keep-away with the balloon.
We recently did a presentation called "Life Skills has gone to the
dogs," showing other high school teachers the benefits of having a
therapy dog in special ed classrooms, and the response was very
positive. Several teachers contacted us to find out more about our
program, and we were asked if we would transfer to another high school
classroom that had several students with severe behavior problems, or
train a dog that they could use. We said no to both! We could not
take Bufford away from our kids who truly love him, and we could not
bring another dog into his classroom. Bufford was raised specifically
for this work, and a great deal of time is required to do this. The
teacher I work with is also my sister, so we both went to all of his
training classes, taking turns working with him so that he would work
for both of us. We also raised him using gentle verbal corrections,
never hitting him so that he would not be afraid of raised hands or
angry gestures that are very common in our line of work! (He also is
trained with hand signals).
I could go on, but bottom line is this: I will never teach special ed.
again without Bufford. He has taught our kids responsibility,
unconditional love, sharing, patience and trust.
View more photos of Bufford!
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