Career Day

Yesterday, I spent the morning at Adams Elementary School giving Career-Day presentations to third and fourth-grade classes. Although I don’t actually have a career, I was there speaking on behalf of the Animal Defense League, the largest “no kill” animal shelter in South Texas. Two women—also ADL volunteers—were supposed to assist me, carrying a box full of printed handouts, etc, but for various reasons they were unable to attend, so it was left to me and Simone to handle the gig. Simone is a four-month-old black, Labrador retriever who is great with kids, but not very handy toting boxes and water bowls.
After spilling brochures, coloring books, and a water bowl in the school parking lot, Simone and I finally made it to the teacher’s lounge where we awaited our call along with a police officer, a water company employee, and a guy who sold cell phones, a university professor, a fireman, and several others from various professions. Everyone loved Simone, but voiced their concerns about “following a dog act.” I could understand their pain; if you show a kid a cell phone and a puppy, guess which one is going to get the most attention.
The school officials suggested I talk about: a) the kind of work the ADL does, b) other careers working with animals, c) educational requirements and subjects one would need for animal-related careers, and d) why the kids should stay in school. As I said, these were suggestions, not requirements, so I immediately threw them out the window. Instead, when I entered the first classroom—Mrs. Ramirez’s third-grade class—I held up the dog and said, “This is Simone, and her job is being a dog. How many of you would like to be a dog?” Nearly all the hands in the class shot up.
“Cool,” I said. “Being a dog is fairly easy, you have to now how to eat, pee, and play. I would guess that most of you already know how to do this.”
A loud chorus of “Yeahs” broke out, while Mrs. Ramirez eyed me suspiciously. I was tempted to take a bow and leave on a high note, but my devotion to duty got the better of me. Simone and I stayed, and I went through a 15-minute spiel about careers, education, and the behavior of pets. I don’t know how much of what I said was actually heard by the kids; their attention was riveted on Simone. They interrupted every few minutes with “Can we touch her.”
The last part of the presentation was the “question and answer period,” which is always fun for me. As I walked Simone around the classroom so the kids could pet her, tiny hands would rise. “Do you have a question? I would ask.
“Yes,” most of them would say. “I had a dog, but he got out of the yard and was hit by a truck,” was typical of the kind of questions I got.
“That’s a good question,” I would respond. “Anyone else have a question?”
“I have a Chihuahua, and it ate my sister’s bra.”
“Another excellent question,” I would say.
After all the kids got to pet Simone, I thanked them for allowing us to visit and then passed out some “activity books” filled with pictures to color and connect-a-dot puzzles.
Before we left, I said, “So kids, be sure to stay in school and read a lot of books, but if I were you, I’d give serious consideration to being a dog. A dog doesn’t have to have a job, pay taxes, get married, go to war, worry about changing fashions, or pay a mortgage. And, you can even eat a bra.
After that first presentation, the principal asked me to wait in the teacher’s lounge while Simone did the remaining four presentations by herself.