Thursday, May 28, 2009

An A-typical Typical Day in Humane Education

Yesterday was a very busy day for our education department (that means me!) In the morning I spent time in Watertown with meter readers for WE Energies talking about how to read canine body language and things they can do to keep themselves safe from dogs they encounter while on the job.

In the afternoon I visited Richmond School in Sussex to speak to an assembly of 200 children from grades 5-8 about careers with animals. After the assembly I met with two groups of 7th graders who are working on a service project for HAWS. Because it's near the end of the school year they intend to continue their work next semester.

In the morning it was my pleasure to greet visitors from Phyllis Wheatley Elementary School in Milwaukee. The children were 4, 5 and 6 year old from the early childhood program. Initially their teacher had wanted me to visit there with some animals. Because we primarily serve Waukesha County I wasn't able to accomodate this request. Luckily they were able to bring the children to HAWS.

The children had a tremendously fun visit. They got to learn about what we do here at HAWS, went on a mini-tour, and met many of our adoptable animals.

They were fascinated by the domestic rats, enthralled by the guinea pig and delighted by the cats I brought out for them to visit with. As usual I saved the best for last, and Mystic entertained them with his many tricks.


There is something very satisfying about educating such a vast range of ages. One of the things I truly love about my job is that no two days are ever the same, and that I get to interact with people from ages 2 on up.

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