Group teaches compassion for animals

Ihad just finished a lesson about dog fighting and cockfighting, brutal blood sports that still go on today.

It was now recess time for the fifth-grade class, but a student I’ll call Anna didn’t want to leave. Instead, she asked if she could stay behind to talk to me.

The teacher gave Anna permission to stay, and she sat down with me.

“I think I finally understand something that happened to me when I was little,” Anna began.

“My mom had a job that took her away from home for three days and nights in a row, and I had to stay with my dad. Every Friday night, we went to a place where there were lots of dogs and everyone kept yelling at them. The last time we went, policemen came. My dad put his gun in my coat pocket and the policeman took him away. I had to go and stay at a house with people I didn’t know. The next day my mom came to get me.

“Miss Sherry, I was at a dog fight, wasn’t I?”

As the program director for The Animal Connection, a humane education course for children, I’ve heard too many stories like Anna’s.

Animal abuse and neglect are unacceptable in their own right, but they also pose significant danger to our communities.

Law enforcement officials have long recognized that brutality toward animals, especially when it starts in childhood, often persists into adulthood and becomes a predictor of violence in human relationships.

According to the FBI, by age 21, 78 percent of habitual offenders admitted to having abused animals.

Advocates and activists call this “the link.”

Fortunately, this link works both ways: There is also a connection between fostering kindness to animals and creating caring relationships with peers. It’s what we try to achieve in our program, The Animal Connection.

The program was developed by Animal Protection of New Mexico, a nonprofit, statewide animal advocacy organization. The group’s mission is to make humane the new normal. Animal Protection of New Mexico’s legislative arm, Animal Protection Voters, works to change laws that change animals’ lives.

The Animal Connection team consists of educators, volunteers, and registered therapy dogs who go into schools across New Mexico to engage students in experiential learning that goes far beyond the classroom.

Lessons are designed to build an ethic of kindness and responsible animal stewardship through learning activities aligned with the state’s Common Core Standards.

“The Animal Connection has made a huge impact on my class this year,” one fifth-grade teacher told us. “Students learned about the connection between bullying and abuse, both for humans and animals. Most have taken this to heart and treat each other with more kindness.”

Offered in rural and urban areas since 2010, The Animal Connection is tremendously popular and successful. Last year, students at Nava Elementary in Santa Fe even held a “penny drive” for The Animal Connection, raising more than $200 from their piggy banks to bring the program back to their school.

A comprehensive 12-week program is available for grades 3 to 5, and grades 5 to 6, in addition to a four-week program created especially for pre-K through second grades.

Children share what they have learned and talk with their parents about spaying or neutering their family dog, adopting an animal, loosening a collar that hasn’t been checked in years, and, in one case, turning down an invitation to see a cockfight.

The Animal Connection also reaches out to juvenile detention facilities.

There, the therapy dogs help the students, many of them victims of abuse, reconnect with their own feelings and develop empathy for others.

So far, The Animal Connection has served over 16 schools and five pueblos, expanding from one county to seven, but demand far exceeds the funds to offer it where it is needed.

A fundraising campaign is underway through March 24 to raise money for this life-changing program. No donation is too small — $4 buys treats for our incredible therapy dogs. A gift of $565 will allow us to bring the 12-week program to a school. Support will enable the Animal Connection to continue reaching children and youth in school districts, Native communities and correctional facilities across New Mexico.

To learn more about The Animal Connection, view the fundraising video on LoveAnimals.org, visit the program’s webpage, or contact Sherry Mangold, education outreach director, at sherry@apnm.org.