- April 19, 2024
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Students Jacob Moss, Aria King, Ashley Kassan and Desmond Akmentins and teacher Kate Sturman play with Nala. Photo by Paige Wilson
Wyatt Christlieb and Desirae Astrologo interact with Ash with clicker training. Photo by Paige Wilson
Ash sits on Desirae Astrologo's leg. Photo by Paige Wilson
Ashley Kassan tries to comfort Liam so he'll eat the treat. Photo by Paige Wilson
Nyla King and Jamine Santane help Alizon feel less scared. Photo by Paige Wilson
Alizon climbs a chair. Photo by Paige Wilson
Desirae Astrologo and Wyatt Christlieb give Ash a treat after she responds to the clicker noise. Photo by Paige Wilson
A group of Rymfire Elementary School students crawled around a room at the Flagler Humane Society to bond with four different cats. Though it felt like playtime, the students were on a mission to help their feline friends become more comfortable around humans.
Some of the cats took longer to open up to the middle-schoolers than others, but eventually, they would come closer at the sound of a hand-held clicker and receive a piece of cat food as positive reinforcement.
The group of eight students created a Community Problem Solvers project called TRAIN: Training Rescue Animals In Need. Every Tuesday for one hour, TRAIN meets at Flagler Humane Society at 1 Shelter Drive to divide up into groups and spend time with a handful of cats and a couple dogs.
“Our main goal for this is to raise some of the animals’ confidence and get them more used to human interaction so that it’s easier for people to handle them, they have a better life and it’s easier to take care of them,” sixth-grader Aria King said.
TRAIN adviser Kate Sturman spoke about how passionate the students are to help these animals find forever homes. She said that they’re also currently working with RES Principal LaShakia Moore to create weekly adoptable animal posts on the school’s Facebook page.
This school year, after deciding they wanted to work with animals, the students realized FHS had over 80 dogs and nearly 300 cats in need of adoption.
“We can’t help them in a big way, but this is a way for us to interact with the animals, so, we came up with this group,” sixth-grader Desirae Astrologo said. “Possibly, a problem here is because they’re shy, but the only reason they’re shy is because people just don’t know how to treat them, so we thought, ‘How can we help them become more social with people?’”
TRAIN collaborated with FHS Community Outreach representative Gary Perkins to give the students hands-on clicker training time with several animals each week.
“People want pets to be able to come to them,” Sturman said. “Clicker training helps them come to us.”
In addition, TRAIN is working to sell $300 worth of chocolate to community members to help lower adoption rates for some of the animals at FHS, hoping that decreasing the cost would be another incentive to adopt.
Perkins said this is the first time FHS has worked directly with middle-schoolers for clicker training and that it’s been a success. The shelter is planning to hold summer camp programs next year for fifth- and sixth-graders and seventh- and eighth-graders to help increase animal and human interaction, as well.
Visit https://flaglerhumanesociety.org. Contact Kate Sturman at [email protected] for more details on TRAIN.
