Cute squared.
My hand-picked Saturday event at the Liverpool Public Library this weekend was titled Paws to Read.
Handlers from the organization Paws of CNY bring their wonderfully trained dogs into the Children’s Room once a month. Children of all ages can sit on the floor and read to them.
Three dogs are at their stations.
It was as adorable as it sounds.
Pretty scene.
Attendance was a bit spotty, it being a holiday weekend and all. This allowed my dear wife Karen to take a seat with calm service dog Dory, owned by my colleague Martina.
There will be more photos spread across the library’s social media accounts when I get into the office later this morning. Give me an hour or so to write and post. You can find the pages from the library link above. Feel free to join our followers.
Do you read to your pets? Are your pets calm enough for this sort of situation? What’s your favorite children’s book, and why?
Mark Bialczak 
Mark – this is such a cool program!! I’ve never tried to read to our dog, but I talk to him all the time 🙂 I don’t recall my fav book when I was a kid – I read A LOT – but one of my fav children’s books now is “The Owl and the Woodpecker,” by Brian Wildsmith. It’s a great story about learning to compromise and the illustrations are so beautiful, bright & rich 🙂
Really enjoyed this post! Loved the pics, too – Karen is so pretty! (I know this pic doesn’t show her face, but you have posted others that have. I LOVE her hair!!) Sounds like the job is going well, too!
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I think it’s cool how you’re plugged into naming a fave children’s book, Sadie. Way to go!
Hey, maybe your pooch would be soothed by being read to. And … I talk to Ellie B all the time as well.
Finally, I’ll pass along your kind words to Karen. She is quite lovely, indeed. ❤
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The therapy dogs were at my library today. They come two times a month. The GO Team Therapy Dogs of Syracuse. I could watch them interact with the patrons for hours, but I suppose my bosses expect me to work!
Don’t know how to post a photo in my comment like Paul, but the first book that came to mind was a little book entitled “A Surprise For Mrs. Bunny”. Sweet little illustrations of young bunnies painting eggs in hues of blue, green, orange, red etc. I guess I’ve always loved the sight of eggs and their perfect oval shape. Pair them with bunnies wearing clothes and bright colors, what more could I ask for? I was always disturbed by an illustration in another book on our shelf “Little Black Sambo”. As a preschooler I was too young to realize it was racially offensive, but there was a page in the story where tigers chased each other around a tree and turned to butter. That illustration of the pool of butter containing nearly submerged tiger bodies was upsetting!
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The hospital I work at it uses therapy dogs and the kids absolutely adore them. I have actually thought about taking Maxie and Mikey in, I think they would make great therapy dogs, but I am not sure Mikey would be able to navigate the shiny tile floors (he has a few neuroses). The reading with puppies idea is fantastic!!!!!
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Slick floors and doggie nails are a bad mix, for sure, SD. But your sweet boys sure would be good with hospitalized children, if you could get them in there. ❤
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I think they would.
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What a fantastic program!
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Good for the kids, dogs and dog owners, AMV. 🙂
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Great program with the right dogs. I would love to read to Cody, but she’d steal the book and eat it.
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Ellie B would jump up at the scent of anything else to eat, CM.
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Great program. I like to think my pets are reading with me 🙂
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I have a feeling they are, Joey.
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i utterly love this program. i doubt glen the cat would go for it, but maybe nacho would have. it takes a certain calm personality, i think. my fav children’s book is ‘go, dog, go.’ l love the surprise dog party in the trees at the end.
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That’s a perfect book for this program, Beth, if the dog would stay put for it!. Nacho was calmer than Glen, even though he crept off to the neighbor’s every now and then, huh?
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Ruby is calm enough but I don’t know her reading tastes!
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Ha! Ask her, Willow. 😉
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Just might have to!
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Could you send me a link for the Paws organization? Thanks for the great story and pix?
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Thanks, Martha. Here’s the link for you, my friend.
http://pawsofcny.org
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That is a wonderful program Mark – I’ve done some reading on it in other jurisdictions. Fabulous results. The children feel very safe reading to the dog and the dogs love the attention. Excellent results.
Oh, my favorite book by far when I was young was “The Golden Treasury of Caroline and her Friends” by Pierre Probst. It is out of print now and a clean copy can get between $600 – $1200. My copy went in a donation to the Dartmouth Library when I moved out of home and couldn’t take all my thousands of books with me.
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Fantastic that you read to the kids, and that you donated your favorite book so others could enjoy it thereafter, Paul. Quite a catch these days, a clean copy would be! 🙂
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