Another amazing Animals Asia project…

Sadly, the majority of people in China don’t have dogs as pets and many consider them as vermin or dangerous street animals. Most children here are scared of them and don’t understand how to read their body language or how to approach and greet a strange dog safely.

A few days ago I visited the ‘Professor Paws’ project which involves taking dogs to schools to introduce them to children. It is similar to the Dr Dog project in that the objective is to encourage mutual respect and appreciation between humans and animals. All dogs Animals Asia work with go through a rigorous selection process before being allowed to participate in their programmes, and Professor Paws is no exception.

The children were very excited when we arrived with the dogs and very quickly came to terms with the visit and really enjoyed the interaction.

 
The children put on a dance for us and we were accepted and treated like celebrities…….. Well Jill is a celebrity here anyway, and rightly so !  They sang  “we love Jill” – “we love Animals Asia”……. we were in tears throughout the show…….. Beautiful and touching 😂😂😅😅😅👍😀👍😀

After the welcome ceremony, the children were invited to sit on the floor and be introduced to a dog. They were fascinated and so happy to touch and interact with them.

Master Chef

Local press and government officials were present on the day and towards the end of the event a couple of surprises came our way 😳😳😳…… A local chef was invited to the school and Jill and I were asked to take part (on stage) in a sticky rice pudding making competition. This involved wrapping sticky rice and a piece of fruit in bamboo leaves and then tying the parcel up with string ready for steaming.

I was the BEST of course he he😀👍😀