Fun with Books

My mom loves to read. Her mom is an actual librarian. So that love has been passed along to me, a dog who will never be able to read. Thus, I sit at a library about one Saturday a month, especially in the summer, to let children read to me. This requires a unique set of skills. The first of those is that you're not really the center of attention. The children are staring at and touching a bunch of paper instead of me. Sure, there's the greeting part, but then the attention isn't on me anymore. What's that about?

The next is that I have to be able to pose for a picture almost every time. I'm excellent at that. The camera loves me.

I also have to be able to calm down and look like I'm paying attention. Since dogs don't see in two-dimension, this is a little harder. I'm much more interested in the sibling who is petting me or the little boys running around or the other dogs sitting nearby. It is a definite challenge to settle down and pay attention. The training book that my mom had to read to qualify me for this program suggests that when you teach your dogs how to do this, you should read to him and hide treats in the book so that he is always looking at the book. But I drool all over everything when treats are involved. Kids don't like that. I'm not sure why. So my mom taught me to lie my head down flat in the direction of the child. She also taught me, go say hi, which she says to me when I'm not social enough. That means, you'd better walk closer to that kid.

Sometimes, it's hard. Kids like to get right in your face, and I don't like that. Mom usually recognizes that and tells me to lie down. Sometimes, when I'm upset, I go lie behind her to let her know I need a break. Muggsy would bark. I'm so much cooler than him.

But sometimes kids are really funny. Like today, this little boy ran to get all the books about trains and then didn't read me any of them, just looked through the pictures as fast as he could. He didn't look at me or pet me once. There was one little girl who asked, "Can he really understand me?" My mom didn't want to lie, so she said, "I think he understands books about dogs," so she read me all the ones about dogs.

My mom can train you to do this if you are interested. It's a lot of fun, and it gets kids excited about the library. Definitely check your library's calendar and bring your child down to check us out. I'm in Manhattan Beach, Lawndale and RPV, but lots of libraries have similar groups. It's really fun! Check us out!