By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
GREAT BEND — Pets are supposed to provide comfort. That's especially true of therapy pets, whether they be the typical cat or dog or the less common therapy snake or chicken. One dog in Great Bend is helping young readers. Since 2018, Glenn Schraeder and Luna the Burnese mountain dog have helped turn many young students into more confident readers.
Schraeder had worked with a previous therapy dog that was approaching retirement several years ago. He knew he wanted to continue doing therapy work and began looking for the perfect pet. Burnese mountain dogs are originally from Switzerland, and a full-size male can pull up to 1,000 pounds.
"We made the decision to pick out a dog that might be capable of doing that," he said. "In the process, we probably looked at six or eight different breeds of dogs and narrowed it down to Luna."
Therapy dogs are often personal pets that have been trained to go into nursing homes, hospitals, and reading programs like those at Great Bend Public Library. Schraeder opted to train Luna himself so the pair could strike a true bond.
"I always believed training your own dog is a little bit better than taking it to a trainer because there are so many quirks that you have - hand signals or your eyes are twitching," Schraeder said. "It's always best, I think, if you train your dog yourself. Once that process went through, there was a pretty extensive study course I had to do online for Pet Partners. After that was all done, we had to go for an evaluation."
Washington-based Pet Partners is an international leader in the field of demonstrating and promoting the wellness benefits of animal-assisted therapy. The organization put Glenna and Luna through a rigorous evaluation of some 20-30 qualities to determine if the duo would make an effective therapy team.
"Through the evaluation, they not only evaluate me, they evaluate Luna, and they evaluate how we interact together," said Schraeder. "Once that process was done, we were registered with them and able to go out and do some work."
The results now speak for themselves. Glenna and Luna, now 7 years old, were recently featured in a story by Pet Partners, and Great Bend Public Library Assistant Director Amy Mayhill said they are very welcome guests.
"The library cherishes Luna and Glenn and their willingness to give of their time to encourage children to read, and read in a safe environment," Mayhill said. "We are very fortunate to have them in Great Bend."
The Pet Partners feature includes some stories about local readers, including a fifth-grader who did not like to read out loud because she did not know all the words. She began reading aloud to Luna, who does not judge. The mother of another young reader said her daughter could never sit still long enough to finish an entire book - until she started reading with Luna. Another girl checked out books and practiced at home ahead of time so she could read well with Luna.
"You always have a bunch of kids that are just gung ho to come in and read to Luna, but there's always that one kid standing in the background you have to entice to come in there and read out loud to Luna," Schraeder said. "A lot of kids don't like reading out loud, and it's an opportunity for them to do that. When you look at those five, six, eight, 10 stories, we're visiting over 800 people a month right now. Those are really the special stories."
Glenn and Luna also make stops at Clara Barton Hospital and some area nursing homes. Luna is usually at the Great Bend Public Library from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. each Thursday, but will be taking a few weeks off in October.
“She offers a short but meaningful break from routines in nursing homes with many reminiscing about all their dogs in their lives,” Schraeder said. “At hospitals, she helps patients and people in the waiting rooms forget for a second about their problems. She also loves to interrupt therapy sessions to give those people a short break. When done there, we will visit the staff."