Sit, stay, come. Those are just a few of the commands these young dog trainers practiced at the Naperville Area Humane Society. It’s all a part of the K9 Manners Training. While the dogs certainly enjoy the extra treats, it’s just as much fun for the kids.
Everyone Has Fun
“I love playing with animals, it’s my number one favorite thing to do,” said Ellie, one of the program’s participants. “When I grow up I really want to be like a vet tech or something and help out animals and I just think it’s really fun helping out animals who don’t have a home and hopefully help them get a home.”
“I like how we get to spend a lot of time with the dogs and the cats and we also get to teach them tricks. It helps me with my dogs and I really like it so far,” said 13-year-old Tiffany.
The five-week course teaches kids that each dog has its own personality and will respond differently to training techniques.
Paws-itive Reinforcement
“We always emphasize positive reinforcement training for our adopters and kids in our program so we always want to encourage rewarding behavior that we want to see and ignoring or redirecting behavior we don’t want,” said Lauren Lonski, humane education manager for the Naperville Area Humane Society.
The training helps all the shelter dogs get one step closer to earning its Canine Good Citizen certificate, but K9 Manners Training also about making connections.
“Train the dogs and just interact with them and make a relationship with the dogs and just get to know them and have a lot of fun,” said 14-year-old Nate.
Teaching all the dogs some new tricks.
Naperville News 17’s Casey Krajewski reports.
