Nothing quiets 400 plus elementary students quicker than showing a picture of a cute dog in distress, with bandages and looking pitiful, as if someone had beaten the poor thing and left it to die.
Which was the case with Turtle, a sleepy-eyed Pit Bull, who was rescued from the shelter and is now in safe hands and thriving. Since that obviously wasn't always the case, Turtle's owner, Kristie Miller, uses her four-legged pal to talk about, of all things, bullying.
On Tuesday when Miller and Animal Services Manager Chris Huff visited Ellis Elementary in far North Arlington, they used Turtle's plight as an example of extreme bullying, of someone doing something purposely harmful.
After Huff explained to the students how bullying works - who are bullies, who are often the victims of bullying, and how to slow or stop it - she showed a slideshow of Turtle and what she was like after her own bout with bullying, and how she is now.
Using a Pit Bull only deepens the discussion of bullying at the many stops Huff and Miller have made at Arlington ISD and other area schools, partly because one aspect of bullying involves striking out at people whom the bully does not understand and see in a different light.
"Everybody see Pit Bulls as these vicious animals," said Miller, who has been turned down by some schools because of Turtle's breed. "People judge Turtle by the way she looks. That's a lot of what happens with bullying. Kids are judged, and picked on, because they are overweight or wear glasses or just look or act differently. So just thinking about it that way made us want to tell the bullying story from Turtle's perspective. They get it."
They certainly do. Huff said she's received letters from students after the assemblies saying either they have been bullied and now know how to stop it or that they might be bullies themselves.
"Some kids are bullies and don't even realize that's what they are doing," Huff said. "That's why we take time to explain: here is what bullies do. Is that you?"
What they found out early on is that kids really get it when looking at bullying from the perspective of an animal that went through cruel treatment. And the dogs aren't bad props to have around, especially in front of a crowd of hundreds of fidgety children. When Huff and Miller visit their last school for the year, Goodman Elementary, on May 28, they'll be talking to about 600 students. They've already addressed over 6,000 students, said Miller.
Then there's the sideshow to the show. What helps keeps the students' attention is Turtle's skill at, well, painting. Miller places a paw sock on Turtle, dips it in paint, and lets her dog do her thing on a blank canvas.
By the time they leave, the school has a memento of the visit: a framed picture of Turtle's masterpiece.
Animal Services, Highlights, News