by Jen Reeder

Retirement isn’t for everyone, as Durango resident Ken Hibbard learned in 2009 after 20 years of teaching in Bayfield. Hibbard gravitated to the La Plata County Humane Society and started creating programs to benefit two of his passions: children and animals.

“My passion has been kids from day one,” Hibbard said. “So once I started working at the shelter, reigniting my passion for animals, it was like, ‘Let’s put the animals with the kids.’”

That’s just what he’s been doing for the past three years as the education and outreach coordinator at the shelter. Some programs Hibbard has spearheaded include bringing shelter cats and dogs to meet with students with disabilities, organizing summer internships for students at the shelter, and helping students at the Robert E. DeNier Youth Services Center learn to train shelter dogs in the center’s yard.

Last year, he worked with Bayfield High School to host a pep rally to raise money for medical care for a puppy with a broken leg. Students raised more $500, and the class that raised the most got the honor of naming the pooch (“Bandit.”)

His latest venture is a children’s literacy program called “Read to a Dog.” The program launched in January at Park Elementary School, and pairs a dog with one to three students (K-3) who want or need to practice reading skills with a nonjudgmental listener.

Ken Hibbard, of the La Plata County Humane Society, socializes shelter dogs during a weekly play session near Turtle Lake recently./ Photo by Steve Eginoire

“I’m always looking for ways that we can support teachers and this is innovative and different,” said Kathleen Lau, principal at Park Elementary. “Animals have a calming effect – they don’t talk back, they don’t correct you. So it’s worked really well.”

Hibbard said there are many programs in which children read to dogs around the country, but typically the dogs are trained therapy dogs. By using shelter dogs it’s a win/win because the dogs get to socialize with children, making them more adoptable, while the students gain confidence about reading.

“Our twist on it to the elementary school kids is we need their help,” Hibbard said. “All the kids have to do is pet the dog and read them a story, and that calms the dog down, gives the dog confidence to be around people – especially kids – and the whole idea that I’m telling students is ‘You’re going to help these dogs get adopted.’”

It’s already proved true: the first dog, Innis, was adopted soon after the program started. The new owners allowed Innis to continue his work at Park until a replacement was fully vetted and trained. Now the kids are reading to Nikki, a 7-year-old German shepherd. Asked what he likes best about the new reading program at Park, 10-year-old Ian Karr broke into a grin and said without hesitation: “The dog.”

While students read to Nikki, volunteers sit in on the session. All four of the volunteers at the Read to a Dog program are retired elementary school teachers, so they can help facilitate the reading.

“They’re not being a reading teacher, but they know how to redirect kids: ‘I don’t think Nikki really understood that. See her ears? I think she wants you to read that again.’ Just little subtle things like that,” Hibbard said.

Volunteer Jennifer Floyd, who has taught for 18 years in the 9-R School District, was inspired by one of the first children she met through Read to a Dog. The girl was noticeably shy and told Floyd she was afraid of dogs. But once she started reading, she became more comfortable and by the end of the session, she wanted to hug Nikki goodbye.

“I thought, ‘If nothing else, this girl has made a connection with the dog and also practiced her reading’ … it’s really exciting to see it can touch kids in so many different ways and help the animals,” Floyd said.

Because the response to the program at Park has already been so positive, other school administrators have been contacting Hibbard and the Humane Society to see if they can also participate in Read to a Dog.

Meanwhile, the Humane Society dogs are also helping and being helped by teen-age students in Durango. Once a week, Hibbard, a dog trainer and volunteers bring shelter dogs to the big fenced yard at the DeNier Center, Durango’s juvenile detention center. There, students work to train the dogs to sit, stay, walk on a leash, and other behaviors that will help them get adopted. Training the dogs is a reward for working on one’s treatment and schoolwork.

Tabor Powers, program director at the center, said at a recent session, volunteers brought a dog that had been abused and was afraid to leave her crate. One student spent two hours with the dog, giving her attention and trying to coax her from her kennel.

“By the end of the two hours, the dog was all over him and he did say, ‘I can’t wait to work hard this week so next week I can continue,’” Powers said. “It really motivates them to really work at themselves. Not only do they have their families and everyone else, they have an animal now too that they don’t want to let down because if it comes back next week, they want to continue the training.”

Chris Nelson, shelter director at the La Plata County Humane Society, said all of the programs in which children and animals work together are beneficial to both parties. He also hopes it will lead to a new generation of responsible pet owners.

“That’s the kind of stuff that’s really going to pay dividends later: that they’ll see what’s the right thing to do with a dog, and they’ll practice it when they’re adults,” Nelson said. “We’ll see the benefits of that 20 years down the line when they’re raising their kids to be responsible pet owners and to think about animal shelters and Humane Societies for adoption as opposed to purchasing puppies from breeders and that sort of thing.”

He said the shelter typically adopts 100 to 175 animals each month, and adopted out 1,800 animals in 2011. Innovative programs like the ones Hibbard has created help adoptions, and Nelson said the shelter hasn’t euthanized a dog for space in three years – and even started transferring in dogs scheduled to be euthanized by other regional shelters.

But that doesn’t mean the end of new programs.

Hibbard is working on future projects, including a summer “Critter Camp” for kids, a program that gets kids involved in spay-and-neuter campaigns, expanded internships, and service projects for schools making the move to project-based education. He is quick to credit his volunteers – he currently has 10 – with making the projects possible.

“There’s no way I could do this by myself,” Hibbard said. “The volunteers are the ones that are there on a daily basis making it possible. They’re all great people – hearts in the right place.”

Still, his commitment to creating successful programs to help local kids and dogs is clearly a labor of love.
“I’m having fun,” he said. “It’s supposed to not be a full-time gig, but ... that’s OK. I’m lovin’ it.”