Suzi Scholtz

4/11/04

Hello,
I have been a member of Therapy Dogs Inc. for about 11 years or so... I have two dogs that are currently licensed and we go to visit a local nursing home. I wanted to send you this photo of my upcoming star - my Rough Collie, Divot. He has gone on a couple of Therapy outings, and today was a special day for him.

I was invited to have a booth at a local Health Fair at our College. Since Divot has his CGC and is close to being ready to be Certified as a therapy dog, I thought this would be a perfect training outing for him. Divot has a problem with his feet.... he doesn't always know where his hind feet are, and he wants to get people's attention by using his front paws to pat them. This is not acceptable for a Therapy dog, so he needs to work on keeping his feet to himself. Needless to say, the students and faculty loved him and he got some really good experience in a setting where he couldn't hurt anyone. He worked really hard at keeping his feet on the floor and was immediately ignored if he raised his foot. It was hard to get the students to help be with this, because they thought he wanted to 'shake hands'. It was a great way to explain all of the niceties of preparing yourself and your dog for therapy work and all about Animal-Assisted Activities and Therapies!

We had a great 3 hours, then went out to lunch at a little cafe downtown where there are tables ouside - so Divot went with me and we had lunch "European style", at a sidewalk cafe with my loving dog laying politely at my side. Good thing there was a STOP sign in front of the cafe, because Divot sure turned people's heads! The only time he broke his down-stay, was when his breeder walked up and joined me for lunch! Now, asking a fellow to 'stay' when his 'first mom' comes up IS asking a bit too much!

Thanks for letting me share. I hope Divot will be ready for Certification soon.

Suzi Scholtz