(kids talking)
Our free program is a curriculum
that will use social emotional learning.
The program that helps students to identify
their own abilities with resiliency,
with social connections, actions, and reactions,
all kinds of social, emotional issues.
Especially now, you know, during the pandemic.
We brought the dogs into it because
North Shore Animal League America did their assembly
and they brought puppies with them.
And that's when we realized how much
the dogs added into the actual curriculum
and into the life of the students,
in their school lives, in their private lives
and the lives of the community.
And it really became something more than what
I even imagined it could possibly be.
So the students learn how to interact.
They learn how to make decisions.
They learn different ways that they can deal with conflicts,
different ways that they can deal
with how to overcome adversity.
Brody came to us from North Shore Animal League America.
They identified him as being a dog
that they could see in the program itself.
It's not just what they're learning
about social, emotional.
They're actually living it
and they're actually saving lives.
And they're actually, they understand
that when you adopt a dog at a shelter
and you're saving, not just one dog,
you're saving two because the dog
that's going to a home now opens up the door
for a dog that doesn't have a home.
North Shore comes in and they support that
with the lesson that they do
when they come into the assemblies.
It gave them an awareness as well as an open door,
to their own empathy and their own abilities
to be patient and to be authentic,
to be sympathetic too, at the same time.
Everything is a life lesson with the kids
and with the dogs and the dogs have opened up
so many doors for us.
Honest discussions with the kids
about things that you would never know
that was going on in their home
or going on in their life.
People who were afraid of dogs,
who never had a dog before,
now they're going out and adopting dogs
because they see how much it does enhance their life.
(audience clapping and cheering)
And Teri's here, and of course, Brody.
Brody has the coolest Batman collar. Oh my God.
Are you okay, buddy? (Brody whines)
Don't cry.
(audience moans)
He's just excited. He's not unhappy.
Let me tell you.
He's not unhappy.
He is not unhappy at all.
Ease those paws up, baby.
Oh, ho, ho, he just gave me a giant paw. (laughs)
So what has Brody brought to your programs
from his program, the Mutt-I-Grees program.
Brody has brought so many things to our school.
From giving us different pathways to reach the kids,
to giving us different pathways to educate the kids
about humane education and rescue.
Giving us different, the kids, different pathways
to talk to us in matters that they wouldn't otherwise.
You know, I've always said this,
that adoption of an animal, animals make better humans.
And when you're dealing with, with, with kids,
it's a conduit, you know.
It's something they can focus on to relax them
and focus them. Isn't it?
It definitely is.
And it's opened up doors for kids
to have conversations about really touchy subjects.
Yeah.
So they've talked to us about, you know,
situations in their own lives
that they might not have brought up,
except they kind of related it
to something that happened with the dogs.
Whether it was foster care or whether it's anxiety
or whether it's adjusting to something,
(Rachael chuckles)
Whether it's making mistakes and acting
like you're not supposed to in front of other people.
You better give him a treat.
(Teri laughs)
She's from north shore as well. My girl.
Oh, good.
And you've had Brody about five years now?
I've had Brody roughly about five years.
Brody's seven.
He's about like, like, like Bella Boo Blue, our dog.
He was kind of the size of a small donkey.
(Rachael and Teri laugh) (audience laughs)
Thank you so much for visiting Teri.
I'm so happy you guys brought Brody.
Thank you so much.
(audience cheering)