Maryanne and Jitterbug
Maryanne Dell and Jitterbug are one of the new Reading Assistance Education Dog teams at Prentice this fall. They are very excited and hope that the students are looking forward to the experience as much as they are.
Maryanne adopted Jitterbug, a purebred Tibetan spaniel, from the Orange County Animal Care Center in 2005. Jitterbug had a spine injury that prevented her from walking, so Maryanne worked with a veterinary neurologist who operated on Jitterbug and fixed her spine. Jitterbug now walks just like any other dog, though Maryanne takes care not to put her in situations where her back might get re-injured.
In addition to participating in the R.E.A.D. program, Jitterbug and Maryanne visit hospitals, nursing homes, skilled-nursing facilities and assisted-living facilities. Research has proved that animals bring comfort and improved health to people. Even short visits, such as those provided by Maryanne and Jitterbug, have been shown to lower blood pressure and improve moods in the people being visited. And the R.E.A.D. program has proved that reading to dogs can greatly improve children’s reading and social abilities.
Maryanne is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer CPDT, who works with private clients and teaches obedience, agility and therapy-dog classes. She writes a column about pets for The Orange County Register and ocregister.com, as well as a column for Dog World magazine. She is an evaluator for the Delta Society’s Pet Partner program, which registers human-animal teams for therapy work and programs like READ, and an evaluator for the AKC Canine Good Citizen program.
Maryanne has three other dogs: Fly, a Tibetan mastiff-chow mix; JetBlue, an Australian shepherd; and Alfie, a Pekingese who just lounges around the house.
