Jamie White, founder of Play to Learn Preschool, recently welcomed a 14-year-old dog named Nino into her family. Nino had belonged to White’s friend Linda, and when Linda passed away, White didn’t hesitate to take the pup in.
For the first few months the family
had Nino, White’s kids were home from college on summer break and gave the pup lots of attention. But when they went back to school, Nino got lonely.
White runs her preschool classroom out of the bottom floor of her home. Whenever she would go downstairs to work with her students, Nino would get agitated, so she began to wonder what it would be like to bring Nino with her on her teaching days.
“I just put it out to the parents and said, ‘He’s the greatest dog. He’s like a stuffed animal. He’s deaf. For what it’s worth, he has no teeth. He has one molar in the back,’” White told The Dodo.
The parents agreed, and White brought Nino down to meet her students. Sure enough, he fit right in and seemed happy to be surrounded by a group of young children.
“[N]ot every dog would be fine with twelve 3- and 4-year-olds petting him all day,” White said. “But this dog is just so unbothered, and I do think it helps that he’s deaf and a little bit older.”
White was amazed by how the kids transformed in Nino’s presence. She could tell that they felt intuitively connected to him — when they were being too rowdy, they regulated themselves to make him more comfortable.
“It was just the most beautiful thing, because the students are calmer when he’s there,” White said. “They’re just really interested in caring for him. I’ve just seen a different side of them when he’s there.”
Nino now accompanies White to her classroom every day. Nino has become an integral part of the preschool community, and he loves being around the kids just as much as they love being around him. He sits calmly while they read books to him and pull him around in a wagon.
“They come in in the morning, and he stands at the door and greets each one, [booping] each one of them with his little nose,” White said.
When White sees how much Nino has been enjoying his new role in her preschool classroom, she can’t help but think of his previous owner, Linda. She wishes Linda could see how well Nino is doing and how surrounded by love he is.
“I do like to think Linda would be pleased,” White said. “This would be a dream come true for her that people would recognize this connection that humans and animals have, and even that her Nino would be getting all of this attention. She would just be tickled.”
