Two Good Dog Stories + Kindergartners = New Dog For Me

One thing you should know about me is that I love dogs.  Always have and always will.  My family has one exceptionally cute pup named Harvey and to say that I adore Harvey is an understatement.  If you're not a dog person, you just won't get it, but I L-O-V-E my dog!

Like any parent, I don't want to miss an opportunity to brag about my child dog, so humor me while I share a picture of Harvey:

Now, to someone on the outside, you might think having two teenagers, a toddler, a cat, and a dog (oh, did I forget to mention that Harvey came to us with a few emotional problems?) would be enough to deal with on a daily basis...and my husband would agree with you.  But I want to adopt another dog and I will go to any length to make this happen!

Including asking 85 kindergartners to help me convince Mr. Kelley that our family needs another dog.

This week I spilled my heart out to the kindergartners, explaining that I really, really wanted another dog and that I would do ANYTHING to get one.  We talked a little bit about the word "persuade" and how I needed to persuade Mr. Kelley that adding one more dog to our household would be a good thing.  I told my friends, all 85 of them, that one way I plan on persuading Mr. Kelley to reconsider this whole dog thing is to read a picture book about dogs aloud to him (I'm a librarian, after all!).  I needed their help, though, choosing just the right book to read.

To help me with this lesson, I read Please, Puppy, Please by Spike Lee and Say Hello To Zorro! by Carter Goodrich, both of which are about dogs, and both offering unique perspectives of the joys of owning a dog...or two.

While reading Please, Puppy, Please together, we occasionally stopped and talked about if this book would do the job...if it would persuade Mr. Kelley that our family should get another dog.  The kids got a big kick out of warning me to skip certain pages should I choose to read this book to Mr. Kelley, especially the part where the puppy escapes from the backyard through a hole in the fence. Like someone said, "He would NOT like it if his dog escaped and got runned over."  No.  No he would not.  I'll skip that part, maybe.

We all agreed, though, that as much work having a new puppy seemed in this book, the last few pages were pretty persuasive.  I mean, just look at how happy these kids look at the end of a busy, puppy-filled day!

Surely Mr. Kelley wants me to be happy like the cute kids in this book!

We agreed that Please, Puppy, Please had some merits and should be considered as a read aloud but we wanted to read one more book just to make sure that I read the best book to support my cause.  That's when I pulled Say Hello To Zorro! off the shelf (I knew, actually, that I was going to go to this book before this lesson started, but I wanted this to seem like a coincidence to the kids...like it was meant to be...just like me getting another dog is meant.to.be).

Say Hello To Zorro! offered a slightly different perspective to consider when persuading Mr. Kelley that we needed one more dog in our family.  Like a student said, "This would be a good one to read to Mr. Kelley because it shows how good having two dogs is!"  Exactly the point, student.  Thank you.

The kindergartners helped me choose the parts of this book that were most likely to support our position.  They picked this page to convince Mr. Kelley that our boy Harvey is likely lonely while we're at OB and he's home alone.

Good one kids!  I think that might pull on his heart strings a little.

Next, they decided that I should point out the part when Mr. Bud and Zorro, the two main characters in this story, are snuggling together on the floor.  It might persuade Mr. Kelley that owning two dogs would not only make me happy but Harvey would also benefit from the company.

I don't know that Mr. Kelley cares as much as I do about Harvey being lonely.  But I can try.

Finally, the kindergartners warned me that I should skip one of the last pages where Mr. Bud and Zorro are chasing a poor cat while taking a walk with their human.  "It might make Mr. Kelley not want another dog because your two dogs would gang up on our cat at home."  They didn't think Mr. Kelley would like all of that noise in the house.  Ha...if they only knew!

After reading both stories with these students and with their help in choosing the most persuasive parts of each book, I think I have a solid plan and I'm feeling pretty good about my chances of getting another furry friend at home.  Thanks to my helpers, the fabulous kindergartners of Old Bonhomme, for sharing their persuasion skills with me!  These kids are pros at being persuasive.  It's almost like they've had a lot of practice with it!