Cascade the therapy dog eases literacy learning for young children

Cascade is a 9-year-old greyhound. Cascade’s owner, Carrie Anne Thomas, has been bringing her to the Schoenbaum Family Center for two years. The young students adore Cascade, and they love placing their hands and arms around her. Thomas says this is Cascade’s favorite part of the visits: the physical affection Cascade gets from the children.

Cascade loves ‘holding hands’ with them.
– Carrie Ann Thomas

But the visits are not just opportunities for the children to give and receive affection. Cascade’s presence also creates a warm, nurturing environment for the children to expand their literacy experiences. During the visits, Sarah Simpson, the Schoenbaum Family Center’s family education and literacy specialist, reads a story to the students. Sometimes Cascade’s visit creates a theme for the story time.

In November, the students used the visit to celebrate Cascade’s 9th birthday. The children created birthday cards for Cascade, and Simpson read a story about birthdays during that visit.

Cascade’s gentle nature puts children at ease and creates a positive learning environment.

She is a very calming presence for the kids. Even children who are somewhat hesitant around dogs really feel at ease with Cascade.
– Sarah Simpson

Cascade’s current “job” as a therapy dog is quite distant from her earlier life. She was once a racing dog, trained to chase a mechanical rabbit around a track. Upon her retirement from racing at age 2, Cascade was adopted by Thomas, who is currently a doctoral candidate in the Literature for Children and Young Adults program in Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology.

Thomas was immediately struck by Cascade’s loving personality, and that inspired Thomas to become involved in therapy dog work.

When I adopted Cascade, she was so sweet and social that I knew she would make a great therapy dog. Although I had never been a therapy dog handler before, I had met some and read about them. So I trained Cascade and she got certified as a therapy dog when she was 4 years old.
– Carrie Ann Thomas

While Thomas and Cascade make therapy visits to other facilities, their visits to the Schoenbaum Family Center are special.

What I find most fulfilling about Cascade’s visits to the Schoenbaum Family Center is that it intersects all of my passions: children, books and dogs. … Volunteering with Cascade while being a graduate student at OSU has been one of the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences I have had as a Buckeye.
– Carrie Ann Thomas

Cascade’s visits also fulfill the Schoenbaum Family Center’s mission to foster children’s innate curiosity and nurture their confidence to learn.