Tripper Visits the Extras

A while back...when I was being a terrible blogger, Tripper and a group of students visited the Extras program here in town. Extras is like an after school program for kids in kindergarten to 5th grade to play and learn until their parents can pick them up. There are a couple faculty kids who go to Extras so we used our connections and got Tripper an invitation.

Three boys volunteered to come with us and lead a discussion about Tripper and what we're doing at Salisbury as Fosters. Volunteers Alex Pepper '11, Chris Silvey '11 and Ryan Pappalardo '11 have spent a lot of time with Tripper both by being part of the Undefeated Western New England Thirds Soccer Championship Team and of course Tripper Training Class.

We brought the Extras class outside, had them run around for a while...both so Tripper could see what a large group of screaming children look like...and to make sure they were a little tired before sitting and listening as we discussed Tripper. After their invigorating game of partner tag the group circled up while the Salisbury boys spoke about our Tripper program. After doing what I thought was a very good and thorough job of explaining everything we opened it up to questions...big mistake.

Here are some sample questions...or at least what we got when we asked for questions:

• "I play hockey at Salisbury" 
• "Can the dog help dress someone who can't see?"
• "My mom works at Salisbury"
• "Can the dog feed someone?"
• "I've already met Tripper at the football game."

And they best question... "Can Tripper see the colors of the traffic lights, and if not how does he know how to cross the street. " Clearly this question was asked by a 5th grader.

So after Tripper went around so everyone could pet him, the boys taught the kids how to have Tripper sit and do hand touches. And I was pretty impressed with the boys ability to help control 20 little kids and how well those kids did training Tripper!

It was pretty awesome to see the boys using what they had learned in Tripper Training class to teach other little kids not just about dogs, but seeing-eye dogs and Fidelco. Great work Chris, Alex and Ryan!