Griffin and Tonks Go to School

On Wednesday we went to Gahanna High School for a special event “spread the word to end the word” day.  Griffin was there to meet kids and do some tricks. There were kids doing other things – table games, wheelchair basketball, bean bag toss games, and a ‘pen’ of therapy dogs (goldens too!) next to us.  Loud music. Some of the students were in the room for the 2 hours and the rest of the school cycling through in waves.  

And Griffin was amazing. We did tricks with jumps, and retrieving and jumping through hoops. Putting hoops on a cone, toys in a basket, and skateboarding.

They liked the skateboard best. The second favorite was a game one of the students came up with – tossing a stuffed fish for Griffin to catch. For a while he played along and then when Griffin was tired he just stood there and halfheartedly caught the toy. The student would go get other students and bring them over to visit Griffin and try the fish toss game.

Tonks got a turn too! Between some of the bigger groups I brought her in (and Griffin had a rest!) to show her tricks. She doesn’t have many! But we started teaching her to skateboard and we taught her to go thrugh a hoop. She was able to focus on me with kids nearby and all the noise. She did try to pounce on a preschool age kid and Tonks was fascinated by the basketballs – but we’ll work up to that!  I was so, so happy for the moments where she gave me all her attention even with many excited kids nearby-  it was like seeing a miniature Griffin for those moments and that she’s likely going to be able to do all of the kinds of public events he can successfully do.

Extra thanks to my dog handling assistant/photographer – the photos can’t show all the really impressive moments due to privacy/not showing photos with students.