It was dog exams last weekend, where seven Canberra mutts were tested by the Story Dogs Organisation, a not-for-profit group that provides individualised reading sessions for young readers who lack confidence.

The pass rate wasn’t great – four dogs passed out of the seven enrollments – because it takes a certain type of dog to turn reluctant readers into booklovers.

For the uninitiated, story dogs don’t actually read stories to the children (they wait for the movie to come out) but rather they are the impetus for the child to want to read to them.

Tuggeranong Library is about to receive its first story dog this term thanks to the latest dog recruitment.

Volunteer Jennipher Dunstan, who takes her story dog, Taco (a Bull Arab breed), to Franklin Primary School each week, says the aim is to create life-long readers.

When we caught up with Jennipher, she was taking Taco and a foster dog for a walk. 

“It’s targeted at kids who can read but aren’t confident and just don’t enjoy reading,” she says. “We make it all about the dog, saying ‘let’s read a story to Taco’, or ‘Taco wants to find out what happens in this story’.”

According to St Thomas Aquinas in Melba, story dogs work. A young boy on the program, who was a reluctant school attendee and not engaged in schoolwork, began attending school regularly and participated more following a few weeks with the patient pooches.

During school terms, a story dog visits a school for two hours at a time and each nominated child gets 20 minutes of one-on-one with the story dog and their handler.

There are 20 teams of story dogs in Canberra (ranging from border collies to greyhounds to labradoodles) who visit St Joseph’s, St Monica’s, St Thomas Aquinas, Franklin Primary, Majura Primary, Narrabundah Early Childhood Centre, and Farrer Primary. Participating ACT libraries include Gungahlin, Dickson and, as of term three, Tuggeranong.

“I’ve been doing it a couple of years,” Jennipher says. “I love reading and I really like the fact that we’re helping kids to enjoy reading. I think Taco gets something out of it, too – the kids love him. It’s the highlight of my week.”

For more information, visit www.storydogs.org.au

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