Kids Learning Kindness With Pets Too Tough to Adopt (Be Kind to Animals!)
While a black cat is no rare sight on Halloween, the other 364 days of the year we seem to not want animals of any darker hue. At least, so says the Nebraska Humane Society, who says getting black animals adopted is a challenge throughout the year.
However, some of these tough to adopt pets are getting a second lease on life through the University of Nebraska at Omaha, as young animal lovers are taking back these hard-to-house dogs and cats.
According to 3rd-grader Jean-Carlos, a Field Club Elementary school student in Omaha, Nebraska, “Black animals don\’t get adopted much because people think that they\’re bad luck and people think that they\’re mean.”
Jean-Carlos, along with some of his Field Club classmates, are taking part in a service learning partnership with the Nebraska Humane Society where he works to get these black dogs and cats to their forever home. Instead of keeping these black animals in the shadows, they want to bring them into the light.
The project involved showing Field Club students what being a tough-to-adopt pet is like, showing them the animals first hand and asking them to see how they could be an important part of a loving family. The students are then brought in to think about ways to highlight the greatness of these pets so they can be adopted.
The students’ teacher, Kristine Bielenberg, gives these lessons greater social purpose as well. “I try really hard to connect it to state standards. So besides teaching children to be kind to animals, we work on writing and reading and social studies.”
Students are also asked to make and sell their own custom dog treats to raise funds for the Human Society, in order to continue programs like these and more throughout the year all around the Omaha area.
