Reading Education Assistance Dogs (READ)

Have you heard of Reading Education Assistance Dogs (R.E.A.D.)?

I had the privilege to meet Bailey at the 2010 West Virginia Book Festival in Charleston, W.Va.
Bailey is a Registered Therapy Dog.

I’m a Recreational Therapist (as you probably already know). Naturally, I’ve seen and worked with Therapy dogs in a variety of hospitals, nursing homes and treatment centers.
Bailey is a little different. This dog visits schools and libraries.


Children read to Bailey. As you already know, dogs offer unconditional acceptance of people. They don’t care if you’re tall or small or if you’re from Asia, Africa, or South America. They generally accept all people.


Some children have anxiety when reading aloud. I [Danny Pettry II] am a good example of this. I knew in 1st-grade that there were two reading groups. One group had the majority of children who could read well. The other group had children who struggled. We had simpler books. I felt stereotyped as being in the “dumb” group. I also had an extra reading assistance course during several of my elementary school years. I was excused from science class to go to this reading course. I wish we would have had a dog like Bailey in this class. I think I would have personally enjoyed reading to a dog in elem. school. I would have probably tried a lot harder. I imagine the dog wouldn’t laugh when I would read aloud words like “gum” when it actually read “gym.”

Bailey is owned by Jim Wilmoth. (West Virginia area). Teachers and people with children may be interested in sending him a quick email to learn about Bailey and what he can do for children.

Jim’s email is:
jimsdoghouse (at) suddenlink.net


Notice the “@” sign has been replaced with “at” to prevent automated searches from spamming his email address.

You may also be interested in the Intermountain Therapy Animals:
http://www.therapyanimals.org/

You may also be interested in my children’s book.

It features pictures of cute animals (mostly dogs, but some kittens). It is read like a children’s book, but is like a Trojan horse. It is a lesson book in disguise. Parents, teachers, and people who work with children can find this book to be a useful way to teach character lessons to children, including: being generous, accepting of others, responsible, considerate, respectful and more.

Read more about this book at the Amazon link below:





I’ve already decided that Volume II of Building Character with the Help from Animals will benefit R.E.A.D. if they’ll accept a donation (which I feel certain they will).
I’d like to donate $1,000 worth of copies of Volume II for R.E.A.D. to give away to children.

I may just give the first $1,000 profits to this organization.
I’ll keep you posted as soon as I contact and hear back from them.