Meet Baron. He’s a five-year-old English Mastiff, who is also Australia’s largest dog at 113kgs and 6’6″ tall.
He’s the size of a baby elephant and he’s also a therapy dog.
Together with the Australian literacy program “Story Dogs,” he visits Lalor Park Public School in Western Sydney. At the school, he sits with the children and provides them with affection and comfort. Plus he’s also the ambassador for the Nepean Therapy Dogs Charity.
Being a therapy dog, he spends his time with school kids who have behavioral difficulties to help them build self-confidence.
“He’s there Interacting with the children, helping them with their reading programs… just being lovable and being there to be hugged,” Nicole Celeban, president of Nepean Therapy Dogs, said. “This particular school is a school for children from disadvantaged backgrounds… It’s a reward system for the children for good behavior.”
Story Dogs uses a really great learning system to help students with their confidence levels. We’ve got 500 dog teams all around Australia helping in around 280 schools.
A student works one-on-one with a therapy dog in a 20-minute session. The books they read are suited according to the student’s reading level.
When the child is done reading, the handler will pretend to talk to the dog. He’ll then turn to the student and say that the dog didn’t quite understand what just happened in the story. And then he’ll ask the student to explain it again to the dog.
So now, the child becomes the teacher and becomes the one to help the dog understand.
This helps increase the levels of confidence in the child.
Plus they also ask the students to write letters to their therapy dogs to further improve their literacy skills.
The accepting, loving nature of dogs gives this program its magic and helps children relax, open up, try harder and have fun while reading to a friendly, calm dog.
Baron’s handler and the gentle giant’s human dad is Mark York.
Mark adopted Baron from a breeder who couldn’t care for him. Baron was only 14 months old when he was rescued by Mark. Mark said Baron loves going for car drives, toys, and people.
He also said he spends AUS$200 weekly for Baron’s food.
“Baron eats a lot, he has meat and biscuits for brekkie, chicken necks for a midday snack and meat and biscuits for dinner with extra vitamins and oils, some pilchard or sardines, egg, pumpkin, and veggies,” Mark said.
But, food aside, Baron is still a young dog and loves to play with other animals.
“He is a very laid back dog, gets on with everyone and all kinds of other animals,” Mark shared.
Baron is also an award-winning dog. He has won the best junior dog award at the Royal Melbourne and first place at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
But it’s at Story Dogs where he loves to be. Besides schools, he also visits hospitals and senior care homes.
At Penrith Valley School, the school children simply adore Baron.
“The therapy dogs visit us every Friday and it’s really going well,” Nicholas Danta, principal of Penrith Valley School, said. “It’s fantastic for the students who read to the dogs because they (the animals) are not judgmental. There is [also] no pressure on the children while if they read to adults, they (the students) could shut down. Basically a lot of the kids here have experienced a lot of trauma and our school helps them feel safe and cared for.”
Would you like to learn more about Baron and the effects he’s had on children as a therapy dog? Watch the video below.
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