volunteering with your best friends

There hasn't been much news on the baby front lately but I wanted to share some fun news about Diego...one of our 3 loyal companions.  David and I knew Diego was a good candidate for some sort of volunteering, therapy work or community outreach.  Last year we completed a Canine Good Citizen course with him in which he had to pass 10 tests based on good canine behavior stated by the AKC.  This summer we got involved with a group called Therapy Pet Pals of Texas.  They partner with local organizations to provide visitors from furry friends and their owners.  There are a bunch of crazy dog lovers in this group a la the movie "Best in Show".  After they met Diego, they could not stop raving about how wonderful he is and that he was made for this type of  "work".  David and I got a kick out of their reaction.  We started our training at a nursing home.  A lot of the residents were not very coherent and some completely out of it.  Diego found a handful of people he really liked but didn't show much interest in the rest.  The trainers at Therapy Pets Pals stress that it needs to be a good fit for the owners and the dogs or they see people flaking out on their assignments.  David and I ultimately decided there was a better fit for us.  Last night we had our first assignment at SafePlace of Austin.  It's an organization that provides temporary safe housing and services for victims of sexual and domestic violence.  Our assignment is to interact with the kids (and/or adults) who want to have some fun and pet, play or walk the dogs.  Their faces lit up when they saw the dogs.  Our job is to teach how to treat the animals, how to walk them and just to be there to make them feel happy and somewhat normal.  It was a really fun night and I think this will be the right organization for us moving forward.
http://www.safeplace.org/page.aspx?pid=183
http://therapypetpals.org/