In introducing the speaker for Thursday’s meeting of the Downtown Yakima Rotary Club, member Dana Dwinell made an admission about herself.
“First off, I’m a crazy dog lover,” Dwinell said, prompting some in the crowd to smile and chuckle with complete understanding.
Many people, like Dwinell, relish sharing stories about their dogs.
But for children growing up in homes where violence is the norm, animals are often seen as objects, said Cheri Brown Thompson, founder of Healing Species, the first animal-assisted violence intervention program in the United States.
“There is a connection between animal cruelty and violence,” Dwinell noted before Thompson took the podium. “The No. 1 crime in Yakima is domestic violence. There is a strong correlation between domestic abuse and animal abuse.”
Dwinell is a big fan of Healing Species, which offers a 12-week, school-based classroom program involving rehabilitated rescue dogs. Focusing primarily on fifth- and sixth-graders, it’s designed to break the cycle of violence by helping heal the hearts of children who may not experience compassion and empathy.
That can derail a path to future violence, helping children and animals alike
“We have seen many many lives changed … and not just human lives, animal lives,” said Thompson, whose nonprofit is based in Orangeburg, S.C.
“We have seen remarkable results. The program does work,” she said.
Healing Species is the only program in the world rescuing dogs of “last resort” to rehabilitate them for adoption, or as ambassador classroom dogs for its compassion education and violence intervention school and prison curriculum, according to its website.
“You can teach this. You can teach empathy,” Thompson said, noting that her organization focuses on many at-risk, high-risk schools. Results include fewer suspensions and acts of aggression, often dramatic.
“We also saw academic improvement in several subjects,” she said.
A series of temperament tests help Healing Species representatives determine which rescue dogs will work best in the classroom, Thompson said. The dogs don’t go to obedience school so much as handlers observe how they act and react in different situations.
