In the corner of the animal shelter, 7-year-old Tyler Bullis sat on a fold-out chair in front of pitbull-mix Byron with his thin-paper book cracked open, steadily reading a string of facts about sea turtles as the dog started to fall asleep.
“I would read to every dog if I had the chance,” Bullis said.
It was the Richland Elementary School student’s first time at the Lee County Humane Society’s Books and Barks! program, which held its first session Monday afternoon. The program allows children ages 6-12 read a book to a dog for an hour on the first Monday of each month until May.
“It’s not boring,” Bullis said. “It’s actually kind of fun because he’s a dog that’s playful and he listens to me read, and it makes me feel better at reading.”
Just a couple seats down, Peyton Dagostino, 5, read “Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?” to Jake, who she said has been the first real audience she’s had while reading.
She, too, said the brown and white floppy-eared canine was a good listener, which made it easy to read to him.
“He’s a good boy,” she added, pointing to Jake poised in her direction. “He even sits.”
Peyton’s mother, Alison Dagostina, brought four of her children to the reading hour, noting the benefits it poses for both the children and the dogs.
“I feel like a dog is so much more forgiving,” she said, adding that the reading seems to calm the dogs down too. “If they read to the dogs, they can work out the mistakes by themselves.”
But for some, such as Alison Liang, participating in Books and Barks! was about conquering other fears.
“I just wanted her to be familiar with the animals, really,” said Leo Liang, her father.
Alison Liang, her father said, already loves to read. It’s the animals she isn’t too comfortable around. So her parents signed her up in hopes that she would “learn the dogs’ language,” her father said.
By the end of the hour, her mother said she was already feeling more comfortable around the dogs, though Alison Liang noted that she’s OK with them as long as they’re behind their cage.
The children left the shelter with a certificate they can bring to the Auburn Public Library — which partners with the humane society for Books and Barks! — in exchange for a free book.
Mary Ellen Thomson, volunteer at the shelter, said she was pleased with the turnout of the first session.
“I think that the dogs were really liking having the children there in front of them … You know, some of the dogs I noticed were laying down,” Thomson said.
She said she’s curious to see if the sessions will affect the dogs’ behavior when people are around.
Readings have been shown to reduce dogs’ stress and improve their behavior, Ausu Anaraki, fundraising and events coordinator at the humane society, told The Plainsman last month.
Aside from encouraging reading, the humane society’s goal for the program is to facilitate an environment dogs would likely experience after they are adopted, such as hearing a child speak, Anaraki said.
Parents can sign their children up for the program at the humane society’s website, with the next session set for Oct. 3.
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