By Courtney Cowsill

Pacoima Charter School in California is a quaint one-story structure, complete with old-fashioned school bell, situated between two housing projects. Located in a high-crime, low-income area of Los Angeles, the school’s students have seen an overwhelming amount of violence and desperation—some in their own homes, others in the streets around them.

Dave Moreno, a social worker at Pacoima Charter, saw the effects of this firsthand. “These kids have witnessed a lot, and they grew distant and cold towards one another. Then two years ago, the warmth started coming back, and the teachers see it more every day in their students, as well as each other.”

What changed? Two years ago, Pacoima Charter was a pilot school for the Mutt-i-grees Program. Immediately after piloting the program, the teachers were so excited about the results that they implemented it in grades K to 3. This year they added it for grades 4 and 5, making it a school-wide initiative.

“We have a lot of stray and lost dogs in this area, and sometimes they wander onto campus,” explains Executive Director Sylvia Fajardo, “Before, we’d call any shelter we could find so we could get rid of them as quickly as possible. But now, we say, ‘How can we show this dog respect and love?’ Mutt-i-grees has transformed the way we think.”

It has also transformed the way the campus looks. After having a “Mutt-i-grees Drive” where students brought in food, blankets, and beds for dogs in shelters, Pacoima Charter developed relationships with area no-kill shelters, and wanted to take a more active role in the problem with the strays.

Now, when a stray dog wanders on campus, they are fed, placed in a temporary kennel right there on the grounds, and photographed. The photo is posted on the community board to see if anyone recognizes the dog. If they can’t find the owner, they will call the no-kill shelters to find one that has space, and the shelters happily take the strays in. A few teachers have even adopted some of the dogs after seeing their pictures on the board.

“We want to lead by example,” Moreno says. “It’s easy to read lessons off the page, but how can we make this better and make it concrete? How do we show the kids this means something? That’s what we asked ourselves, and the Mutt-i-grees Kennel was our solution. This is the living example of the lessons.”

The teaching staff at Pacoima wanted the students to know they believe everything they’re teaching, and are thrilled they have the Mutt-i-grees Kennel to prove it.

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.