WESTFIELD – At the School Committee meeting last week, Diane Mayhew announced to her colleagues on the committee that she has completed K9 For Kids Pediatric Therapy training with her dog, “Maggie,” an English springer spaniel who she hopes to use in the Read to Rover program in the schools.
Mayhew started the training three years ago, when Maggie was six months old, taking her through a series of classes with Melissa Kielbasa of Sandy Meadow Farm in Westfield. Although she has had Springer Spaniels before, she has never undergone therapy training with any of her other dogs.
“My first Springer I showed in local little places,” Mayhew said. Her second Springer became a family pet. Maggie spent a year with her last dog, and Mayhew saw that she had a more outgoing personality.
Diane Mayhew and “Maggie” at a School Committee Meet and Greet in Park Square last summer. (Photo by Amy Porter)
“We started with a puppy training class. Maggie was very outgoing, and did very, very well. She got an award for Most Improved,” she said. They built onto the training with the basic classes then continued onto intermediate and upper level classes, each becoming more challenging for the handler and the dog.
“I just saw something in her,” Mayhew said.
Before serving on the School Committee, Mayhew said she was involved in the PTO, becoming president, and as a band parent. Now that her children are grown and gone, she is happy to have another avenue to volunteer within the schools.
“I’m glad I did it. This is a goal I had after the first three or four classes,” she said.
Mayhew also can’t say enough about Melissa Kielbasa. ”She’s just got a way with animals. She’s got a passion. Some people belong where they work, and she’s one of them,” Mayhew said, adding that she doesn’t think they could have excelled as they did without her as a trainer.
Kielbasa is president of the K9s For Kids Pediatric Therapy Unit (www.k9sforkids.net), a volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to kids in Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Dogs and handlers donate their time to bring smiles and joy to children suffering from a wide range of physical, emotional, and learning disabilities.
Originally started in 1999 at the request of the Melha Shrine Unit as a volunteer therapy unit for Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Springfield, Massachusetts, the unit has now expanded to also serve other pediatric medical facilities, camp programs, library programs, and school systems.
In the school environment, where Mayhew and Maggie hope to work, the dogs are used to enhance self-esteem by offering non-judgmental, non-threatening attention while enhancing verbalization. Children in the school programs might be struggling readers, have learning disabilities, or have social concerns that benefit from working with the dogs. Huge strides in improved communication, reading skills and confidence are obvious in the children chosen by their teachers to participate in this program.
Mayhew said there are other avenues for her and Maggie to volunteer, but working with children in the schools is where her heart is.
“This is what I thought we would like to do to start off,” she said.
