Welcome to the Feb. 16 issue of Shelter Scoop - news from Pima Animal Care Center

I’ve written about our reading program in previous Scoops – this follow up is to share a few updates on that program.

One – it’s still running strong. We’d love to have you and/or your group out here to read to our pups.

The second update is we have a variety of groups who come to take part. 

Here are some pictures of a recent home-schooling co-op who brought their students for both a Shelter 101 presentation, and then they took 45 minutes to read to the dogs. 

The ages ranged from kindergarten to high school. (Yes, parents are required when the kiddos are involved.)

And sometimes the pups make it clear they want a deeper interaction than just hearing the words. (You can see this pup trying to reach out to a child who is reading to it.)

And the third update is that our Aphasia group was back for two more visits.

One included our original reading group, and later in the week we had a new group of Aphasia readers in for a visit. 

These are adults who are working on regaining their ability to speak, read and/or understand the spoken word.

Sometimes the cause is a stroke.

Other times it’s blunt trauma.

And there’s also a progressive condition that’s very sad to watch develop – like dementia.

During our most recent visit we had former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords out joining in the reading.

Here are a couple pictures of that group.

This shot shows the aphasia members split up between kennels so multiple dogs can be read to at the same time.

And this shot shows how we had 3 kennels being read to at the same time by this group.

Our Aphasia readers brought a ringer this last time. Bill brought his harmonica – check out this short video of him playing to the dogs – it turned into a sing along. Click here to watch.

In addition to our reading program there’s a music option called Tunes and Tails – for those of you who would prefer making music over reading.

If you and your group would like to get involved with some of our volunteer activities – reading, music with the animals and others, please connect with us through our website.