We have been delighted to welcome Paisley the Puppy to Autism Initiatives head office in Bootle, as part of her training to hopefully become Peterhouse School’s assistance dog.
Dogs are seen to have therapeutic and beneficial impact on children in education and can help with absenteeism, wellbeing, communication, academic progress, self-esteem and confidence to name a few.
Peterhouse School has undertaken training with charity Dogs Helping Kids (DHK) who have paired up the specialist school with Paisley a 6 month old Cavapoo, who has been attending Peterhouse since the age of 12 weeks. The Cavapoo breed has been chosen for size, hyper allogenic coat, temperament and training ability to suit a school assistance dog.
Paisley currently works behind the scenes with no direct contact with children while she develops skills and passes her entry test from the DHK puppy programme. Part of her training is to enable her to experience different environments, people and situations where she then has to generalise her learning.
Paisley attended Autism Initiatives Practice Forum with Lesley Flemming from Peterhouse School on Thursday and, to help with her training, all staff had to ignore her. This was not an easy task but they did so well. Paisley was absolutely fantastic during her visit and settled on her mat for a sleep while everyone else worked hard. She also mastered the stairs, which was a new skill to learn as she does not usually go upstairs at any time. Paisley was a peaceful and calm member of the staff team!
Paisley has her own ‘dog blog’on the Peterhouse School website if you are interested in hearing more about her ‘behind the scenes’ work.
Check out Paisley's Dog Blog
