Tag Archives: children

Sunday Pause (Paws): Thoughts On Speaking Up

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It’s Sunday! Time to kick back and relax.

Relaxing sometimes means more thinking. One thing I think about often during these trying times our world has been going through this past year is animals.

I‘m not sure why I remembered something from years ago but it is what prompted this post. I was visiting a friend who has children and a dog & cat. While I was there one of the children and the cat came into the room. The child was kind of picking at/pestering the cat and so the cat scratched the child. The child was of course upset by that and then swung his leg very hard and kicked the cat. I did a loud shocked noise and said “don’t kick your cat!” My friend told her child to stop but then looked at me and said “well the cat shouldn’t have scratched him.” I was appalled.

Being who I am and how I feel about animals I knew I had to speak up. Continue reading →

Sunday Pause (Paws): For Change

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It’s Sunday! Time to kick back, relax, and sometimes in our lives…embrace change.

This has been a tough week/weekend for me because our time is coming to an end in our current home. I didn’t think I would feel so emotional. I’m really concerned about how Cino will do with this move, although in time I know she will get adjusted, as I will. Change can be exciting but it also can be scary.

With moving day very near I don’t have a lot of time to write this post. We’re buried in boxes but we wanted to peek in and say HI!

boxes-aafbt

Happy Sunday!

We can make a change for the future of animals…
cino-teach-children(for-blog)-aafbt

Another change for us is we are now on Instagram. Hope to see you there!

Teaching Empathy Saves Lives

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I‘m sure most of you have heard about the abduction of the Wisconsin girl, Jayme. As we’re finding out more & more about it all, it has been told that the man who abducted her had killed a dog and had an obsession with road kill. You see my passion for animals isn’t just about my love for animals, it’s something we should all be paying attention to. Research has proven when children show signs of no empathy for animals and harm them, they most likely are just “experimenting/testing” and will move on to humans. This is why I am so passionate about educating children (and everyone) about how important it is to “pay attention” and teach empathy, kindness, & respect to animals. It could just save a life!

teach-children-aafbt Continue reading →

Teaching By Example

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I WOULD RATHER

The circus is in town
Everyone is going there
The kids would have a good time
But I would rather teach them to care

Tricks that are sure to amaze
Entertaining the crowd all night
It’s an event for the whole family
But I would rather teach them what’s right

Clowns with big feet & a red nose
Elephants, lions, tigers, & bears
It’s quite the variety show
But I would rather teach them what’s fair

auntjanice-seth-aafbt-creation-border Continue reading →

Just So Sweet

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Working around children I’m lucky to get some great pictures every now & then.

An officer visited the little ones and their faces were beaming. They love the uniform, seeing the car lights, and hearing the siren. It was so fun to listen to them talk to him and ask questions. They even had a discussion about how if they lost their dog the police will help find them and bring them home.

police-hug-aafbt

Just so sweet! We need to see more positive things like this in our world.

To Bee Or Not To Bee…Stung

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Hello all. I didn’t plan on writing a post tonight but a lot of the material I get is from my day to day life. So when this happened today, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to write about it in the form of a little story. Here goes…

“Once upon a time there were 23 school age children and 4 teachers that walked to a park for a class trip. The children decided to play hide & seek when all of a sudden one of the boys who was hiding in a bush came out running. He was getting stung by bees.

Soon all of the children and the teachers were running from a boat load of bees chasing them around at the park. Many of them are now getting stung.

https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/mJMbgNu3wp-PnV-Wr8DzWdOnJ34=/768x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-91222996-56a520075f9b58b7d0daf1cb.jpgthoughtco.com

Continue reading →

I’m So Excited

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Today I was able to say for the first time to a parent that we are adding RedRover Readers to our curriculum. I’m so excited!

I have talked about this program in other posts, but for those who may not know, it is a program that teaches children empathy for animals. It is taught by reading specific books from the RedRover Readers program and asking children questions to promote critical thinking. They are not told “this is how the animal feels” but by looking at the animals posture, face, ears, eyes, tail, etc. they can then discuss how THEY think the animal feels. Other discussions may be about their personal experiences with animals, what is happening in the book, and even how the person feels.

There is a training for teaching this program that is through redrover.org. I took the training and when we won the RedRover drawing in March this year I was able to get many of the books to get this program going.

Here I am talking with some of our teaching staff about the books & curriculum to give them a better understanding of it. Continue reading →

Empathy For All, Except…

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Does empathy for all include insects? Is it because a bug is so small in comparison to us and considered pests that our empathy might not extend to them?

This week I stepped in for a teacher to go get some water. I was only outside with the children for a few minutes when I noticed most of the group was over at the bushes. I went over to see what they were doing. This is when I saw a girl ripping the wings off of a beetle. I was shocked! This was our conversation…

Me: What are you doing, did you just rip his wings off?
Girl: Yes.
Me: Why?
Girl: Because they’re eating our plants and making holes in them.
Me: So you’re ripping their wings off for that?
Girl: Yes, gardeners say to do this.
Me: What? I have never heard of such a thing. What gardeners?
Girl and other students: All gardeners. They’re killing all of our plants, bushes, and trees so they’re killing us.
Me: They are not killing us. We don’t rip the wings off of insects, that’s cruel. That would be like someone ripping your arms off.
Another girl: So, I wouldn’t care.

Group of kids went to picnic table and were all talking about it, I went over to listen and then intervened. Continue reading →

We Won! (So The Animals Win Too)

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Hello all!

Some of you know that I absolutely love the Red Rover Readers program! I have talked about it before here on my blog. I want so much to make a difference in this world for animals. I always pray that there will be more and stronger laws. But then when I think about this program, I think maybe we need to focus more on human beings and how they treat animals instead of solely relying on the law to take care of it. After all, when the law steps in the damage has already been done.

The Red Rover Readers program is all about teaching empathy. Empathy to animals ultimately helps human beings. As I have pointed out in other posts of mine, there is research that proves the link between animal cruelty and human violence. Children are our future, so we need to start with them to make a change.

Some of you also know I work at a place that cares for children. I took the Red Rover Readers course a few years ago and have been working on implementing it in the classrooms. Just last week one of the classrooms & I read one of the books that is part of this program to the children and held a discussion with the children about how they think the dog felt by looking at his face/posture. I took a picture per the instructions for a drawing, sent it in, and we won!

red-rovers-reading-drawing-aafbt Continue reading →

Hunting At Any Age…What Do You Think?

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I was just recently told that in Wisconsin a new bill will mean there is no longer an age limit on hunting. This means even a Toddler could hunt.

Although I do have my own thoughts and opinions about hunting, I want to make it clear at the beginning of this post that this post is NOT about hunting itself, it is about the age one is allowed to hunt. Continue reading →