Happy New Years!
It's been one of my busiest years to date with signficant ups and downs. I'm looking forward to things calming down in 2016. My goal is to spend some more time on this site with current updates and blogs; along with a few other projects I've been working on.
My focus in the past 16 months has been focusing on trauma in kids/adolescents and how the human-animal bond can impact their functioning. I've been looking more closely at the impact of having a dog in the home setting and also the interactions between kids with trauma and horses.
I am also overwhelmed with requests from my fellow counselors in the district to work with some students at their schools. Copper and I have started to branch out to other schools on a very limited basis. His schedule is always at the forefront of my planning. The last thing I want to see happen, is for him to loose his enjoyment of working by becoming overwhelmed. In light of that, I'm starting to think about a district program and what that might look like for our school district. Getting a grant for that would be AWESOME.
Copper continues to be an amazing partner at school. Even though he's been working at the school for 4 years now, the students haven't grown "tired" of him. They continue to ask for Copper time, continue to write letters to him, continue to ask when they can work with him again, continue to walk him with me at recess, continue to follow our behavior expectations for a working dog in school and continue to invite him to birthday parties - which he politely declines.
I want to thank everyone who has had so many kind comments about this site and who share their passion about this work.
Here's to a productive, positive, healthy and happy 2016.
-Jen and Copper