National Love Your Pet Day
February 20th was an exciting day at the Extended Education Program. We celebrated Love Your Pet Day by welcoming our adopted manatee to our White Birch Family and having a visit from the Pope Memorial SPCA.
When our manatee arrived, we had to give him a name. So, we selected some names for our manatee and voted on our favorites. We ended up with a tie between Jeff and Wonder, which was solved with a round of rock-paper-scissors. The final name we decided on was Jeff. Welcome Jeff, to our White Birch family! We then had to give Jeff a nice home, so we built an aquarium out of cardboard and used paper to make plants, decorations, and fish.
A Humane Educator from the SPCA, Shannon, and her daughter, came to the Extended Education Program to share what they do at the SPCA and teach us how to properly approach a dog. The four most important steps in approaching an unfamiliar dog are: 1. ask your parent/guardian for permission, 2. ask the owner for permission, 3. approach slowly and let the dog sniff you (ask the dog for permission) and 4. once the dog has sniffed you and shown that it is okay with you, pet it in a place where it can see your hand (the front of its body). Once we learned these important steps, we practiced what we had learned on their dog Jax.