By Joe Wilkes

I was at the supermarket with my friend, and we witnessed a mother telling her toddler to “sit” and “stay” in the chairs by the pharmacy window while she got in line to fill a prescription. When the child sat in the chair, he was rewarded with some goldfish crackers. My friend asked me what I was gawking at. I said, “I’m waiting to see if he does ‘roll over’ or any other tricks.” She told me, “You don’t get it, when they’re that age, they really are just like dogs. You have to train them. When they don’t have words yet, how else do you keep them safe?” But what if those words become harder for some to come by than others? Parents and children can learn a lot from dogs—and on a much deeper level than “sit” and “stay”.

The medical and educational communities have long recognized the positive impact of pairing dogs with people for therapeutic purposes. They can provide companionship to the elderly and comfort to the ailing. They can help children with developmental disabilities learn empathy, interactive skills, and even serve as a non-judgmental audience for a child to read aloud to. Children, especially ones who may not be as adept at understanding complex expressions like irony or sarcasm, can learn to relate to the honest emotional responses of a dog, and later transfer that empathy to other parts of their lives.

In the Mutt-i-gree Curriculum, a teacher uses a puppet to teach young children about dogs, using Cesar Millan’s principles. By teaching how and why dogs behave the way they do, the children learn to see the world from a different perspective. The children also learn about homeless dogs in an animal shelter. This increases empathy, self and social awareness, and cognition. It teaches nurturing behaviors and how to interact positively with others. For children who have developmental disabilities, or conditions such as Asperger’s syndrome or autism that impact their social development, the presence of a dog can be especially important. For all children, lessons to be learned from these interactions with dogs, whether real or puppets, are critical for achievement later in life. Learning to read nonverbal cues from dogs can help a child learn to read nonverbal cues from teachers, peers, and other humans critical to his or her development.

Anyone who’s ever meaningfully interacted with a dog knows that dogs are capable of expressing joy, pain, sadness, and love, and all without words. Many of us take for granted how easy we have it because we can express what we’re feeling verbally. Others may have lost that ability, through Alzheimer’s or dementia, and others may have never had it because of a birth condition. Others may have feelings of pain that can’t be expressed by words. Dogs can show us how to see emotion, convey emotion, and connect with others, all without words.

Across the street from where I live, is an adorable Lhasa Apso, named Chang. He used to live with a man who died of AIDS complications. After Chang’s human’s death, he was adopted by his downstairs neighbor, a 70-year-old poet who lives with her 45-year-old son who has Down’s syndrome. The son has severely impaired language because of his condition and Chang had cruelly been debarked by his previous owner. Yet, you see the two of them walking down the street—a man without many words and a dog without much of a bark—and there’s communication, empathy, and connection. No words for that.

About The Mutt-i-grees™ Program

Developed in early 2009 by Yale 21C in collaboration with North Shore Animal League America's Pet Savers Foundation and using Cesar Millan’s principals, the Mutt-i-grees curriculum focuses on teaching self- and social-awareness, relationship skills, and the ability to make ethical decisions that benefit people, animals, and the environment. The research conducted by Yale University is discovering a positive effect on the children who have participated in the program. The children have developed empathy and other social and emotional skills such as being able to understand and label feelings, self-awareness and cooperation among children. Importantly empathy is a social skill related to cognition and is often referred to as the missing piece in educational reform.

To make this important program available to even more children, please give to the Cesar Millan Foundation today.

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