Learning = teachers + students -- Nichelle Peck
October 20, 2012
Nichelle Peck , AVC 2013, travelled to Hopedale as a student participant in the Chinook Project. As part of the experience, the students craft various pieces of writing.
What kind of dogs come to your mind when you think of remote northern communities? Does your brain automatically jump to sled dog types like malamutes and huskies? Mine did. However, this assumption of mine was about to be proven very wrong! I don’t remember seeing many small dogs on our way from the airport to our hospital location. We saw lots of medium to large sized dogs all tied outside. But no small pooches were in sight…..until we opened the clinic; then, they seemed to come out of the woodwork.
Grooming dogs is not a skill I have spent much time or effort cultivating. I dabble with grooming my own dogs, but I am not a professional! This is important to note because while I expected our Chinook trip to involve spaying, neutering and vaccinating the dogs (and maybe a few cats) in the community, I had no idea how important my woefully inadequate grooming talents would become. It soon became apparent, though, how much the community of Hopedale needed and wanted our help and guidance with basic husbandry for their beloved pets. We put our heads together, and, as a team we came up with a plan. We decided that with our very limited grooming tools we would do our best to remove the worst of the matts from our patients and focus on matts in the perineal, inguinal and axillary regions. With each patient it was very rewarding to relieve them of the discomfort they felt. Even more rewarding was seeing just how much each owner cared for and loved their pet. They wanted to learn about grooming and how to do it themselves. . So we talked about where and how to buy supplies, the types of brushes and combs, how to safely cut out matts themselves, nail trimming, ear cleaning and where to find online resources. It was such a great feeling to watch an owner’s face light up with encouragement after we reassured them that they could groom on their own. From a teaching perspective it was the best equation “Learning = teachers + students”. The best part of the entire experience was that we spent time as teachers sharing our knowledge and as students learning from not only the pets, but from the people of Hopedale.
Comments