We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful APRIL TAYLOR. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with APRIL below.

APRIL, appreciate you joining us today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?

When I first started bringing my reading therapy dog to a library I had a mom bring her daughter and son to read with Erma. The little girl was a great reader. But the little boy had a device that had stories we could read together. They came for several weeks. After one session the mother commented that she appreciated me letting her son come even though he couldn’t read. I was very confused since he had been reading, although tentatively, with me the whole time. I told her this and she said that isn’t possible. The teachers told her he couldn’t read. So we laid back down on the dog bed with Erma between us and he read a story. When we finished his mother was crying with happiness.

APRIL, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have a 11 year old German Shorthaired pointer that is a therapy dog. We additionally trained to become a Reading Education Assistance Dog. We have been volunteering in schools and libraries for ten years. During the school year we volunteer at four Title 1 schools in Florida. We work with 32 children one on one a week. These children are struggling with reading and we provide a safe, non-judgmental place for them to cuddle a dog and improve their reading. We also visit all the classrooms of these schools at least once so they can meet Erma and see her read her flashcards. During the summer we invite all children who are interested to read with Erma in a library setting. We run a summer reading program to increase literacy in the summer. We have a 501c3 charity called Reading with Erma that provides a Book vending machine for schools, Free Little Libraries and books for children in their bus.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

When I came up with the idea to have a therapy dog help children with their reading it was not widely accepted. I first started with a library that I had visited regularly and had gotten to know the staff. They thought the program was great and we began once a week. But I really wanted to reach children that struggled with reading. I tried the public schools and they were not interested so I approached my son’s private school. They loved the idea. I worked with children that English was not their native language. It can be very difficult for children who have been doing grade level work in their native country to come here and have to start reading very basic books. Having Erma erased some of the stigma of being a poor English reader. After we moved, I again tried to get into the schools but there didn’t seem to be any interest from the libraries nor the schools in my area. And then one day, a vice principal reached out to my therapy group and asked if there was a therapy dog that could come to her school. I quickly developed a new program where we would have 15 minute sessions with eight children chosen by their teachers and we would meet once a week during the entire school year. From there I added three more schools. If there was a way, I would visit every school but that just isn’t possible.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

I feel that most people just need to love dogs if they want to get into therapy work. Yes, you need the right temperament of dog, but mainly it is developing a relationship with people that allows this kind of work to succeed.

Contact Info:

• Website: Readingwitherma.com
• Facebook: Facebook.com/readingtherapydog