Training dogs helps educate owners
A local Barbara Woodhouse finds her pupils are inspired to work with animals
● It’s a Friday afternoon and Tessie, a slightly overweight mongrel, sits patiently outside the gates of Zamethule Primary School in the township of Mpophomeni.
Dressed in a home-made coat of many colours and accompanied by her owner, Wandile Duma (12), she is waiting for dogtraining classes to begin.
Here, on the outskirts of Howick in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, is where the Barbara Woodhouse of Pietermaritzburg will teach Tessie to sit, stay and heel.
Like her late British counterpart, Adrienne Olivier has been working with dogs all her life. In 2009 she began an initiative called Funda Nenja, a dog-training project in Mpophomeni, with 12 children and their dogs. Now, more than 100 children and their animals take part in the weekly classes.
Olivier believes the initiative is making a difference in the lives of the children and their animals.
The kids, she said, developed empathy, learnt discipline and gained self-worth. The animals got love.
This Friday afternoon — as usual — there’s plenty of enthusiastic shouting, barking and tugging at leashes. One boisterous mutt escapes to challenge a bull standing just metres away. Olivier refers to it all as “organised chaos”.
Funda Nenja (learning with a dog) was founded primarily to give children a humane education. Olivier began this work as part of the educational branch of the local SPCA. Once it grew legs, she realised fundraising would be necessary and this could happen only if the project became independent.
Skills to pupils
The project’s model is unique. It provides veterinary services, sterilisation and rabies clinics; a school education programme delivers life skills to primary school pupils, and education on animal and environmental welfare.
A family support programme runs with a full-time social worker.
“We didn’t expect it to develop like it did,” said Olivier.
“The first week we had 12 kids; the second, over 20. In the beginning it was run by suburban volunteers only. As time went by, people in the community began to run the project, which is the whole point.”
Temba Memela, for example, who is the project’s official gatekeeper, was part of the first intake of children.
“I was about 16 years old when I joined,” said Memela.
“I had always liked dogs and I learnt a lot from this organisation. It has helped a lot of kids who otherwise have hard lives.”
Memela now works at a kennelling establishment in Merrivale.
Many of the instructors are youngsters who have moved through the programme. There is one female trainer, Nomonde Dlungwane.
Her mother, aunt and half-brother also volunteer at Funda Nenja. Olivier said that Nomonde, a matriculant, plans to study psychology next year “because it will be useful for her Funda Nenja work”. The future choices of others have been influenced by the organisation. As a boy, Sandile Ndlovu dreamt of becoming a teacher. Next year he will begin studying at Unisa for a diploma in animal health. Ndlovu, who works at Chase Valley Veterinary Clinic as a kennel assistant, was among the first intake of children at Funda Nenja.
“My grandmother asked me to take her dog Tiger there. She thought it was a vaccination clinic. I stayed on to do the training. It was something different and I enjoyed it.”
Ndlovu said he had no particular affection for dogs before he joined.
Better life
“Then I started to see them differently. They get sick like we do, they get hungry like we do. They deserve a better life, just like we do.”
Many of the children were from dysfunctional families, said Olivier. “We’re often able to pick up when children have issues at home because of the way they handle their dogs.”
All the families are visited by an education officer who helps with information on how to look after the dogs, and a social worker who assesses the family situation.
Ndlovu’s ambition is to become a vet and run a practice in Howick. “It changed my life,” he said.
“Lots of the kids in Mpophomeni smoke and do drugs. The ones training their dogs, you see them on the weekend walking their dogs in groups and practising their training. Their lives are better.”