Teaching Children to Love Pets

My mailbox is a long way from my house, at the bottom of a steep hill.  It seems like nothing good comes in the mail anyway (bills, ads, junk) so I don’t bother to get the mail very often.  Today I was SO excited to get something really wonderful in the mail! I got a large envelope (just an advertisement inside though)that came via two DOG STAMPS from the official “DOGS AT WORK” set issued by the U.S. Postal Service in January 2012!  

One is the Therapy Dog visiting an “elderly woman in her home.”  It’s a spaniel, looks like maybe a Brittney. The other is a black lab guide dog “assisting a woman who is blind” -  or at least her legs, that’s all you can see of her.  I can’t wait to show these to the family! In fact, I’ll go to USPS.com and print out the complete set so they can see all four stamps. They’re all 65c stamps – which demonstrates how valuable dogs are. (Happy Face!)

Even if your child can’t have a pet, you can show them how much you love, enjoy and value pets by sharing things like this with them. You come across pet things in your everyday life all the time! Lots of books, movies, magazines, and TV commercials feature dogs and cats. A lot of car commercials have dogs, insurance companies do too and of course pet food and treats need a pet.

We talk about the TV commercials with pets in them all the time. We pick our favorites, point out how a cat in one looks like our neighbor’s cat, remark on how smart the dog is that puts his bone in a safety deposit box at the bank  – and we also understand why he retrieves it later and buries it. Or, we just ooh and awww at how cute the pets are.

Children follow our lead. If we show them we love and respect animals they will too.  

Want to know which dogs are featured on the other 2 stamps in the “Dogs At Work” set?  http://1.usa.gov/Q5Mfwz