If you hadn’t noticed, the whole school has been buzzing with excitement due to the arrival of the newest Colonel, Honey! Honey is a three- year-old yellow labrador retriever, who works as an assistance dog at South with Ms. Ford!
She was raised at NEADS, a service dog training facility, and learned how to be an assistance dog for a school through lots of training and hard work. NEADS works with many people that have disabilities and helps them get service dogs to help them navigate every day.
The process to get Honey was very extensive. Ms. Ford says that the money provided to South had been gifted by the 365Z Foundation before the pandemic, and that the service dog was supposed to work with a teacher who has now left South. Last year, Ms. Ford took on the process to get Honey, and went through many interviews and tests, including one where she was videotaped while she was interacting with another service dog, and a week-long stay at the training facility to get used to working with Honey.
In order to be respectful of Honey’s training, students and staff are urged to ask before touching her and refrain from calling her name when they see her in the halls, though it may be tempting! Ms. Ford says that people have already been honoring these requests, and she can already see a difference in people’s moods wherever Honey goes. “It’s a community experience,” She says. “We’re all having the same excitement about the same thing at the same time.”
