The history of DHK
The first 10 years and counting...
2001
Whilst studying for her Master Postgraduate Degree in Companion Animal Behaviour Counselling at Southampton University, Tracey Berridge (Founder of D.H.K.) became interested in learning more about Animal Assisted Therapy (A.A.T.) and why children were often cruel to their beloved pets. During her research into these areas she got to know Paul Owens, a similar positive dog trainer (like Tracey), who is based in Los Angeles in America and who runs an organisation called Paws for Peace.
Paws for Peace uses rescue dogs to teach the children non-violence and how to look after and train dogs. At the end of the programme these rescue dogs are all guaranteed adoption. Through further research, Tracey discovered that there were many similar organisations all across America, using dogs to help and teach children respect and non-violence – from Project Pooch to PAWS in the Classroom, from Project PAL (People, Animals, Learning) to Humans and Animals Learning Together (The HALT programme). At this time there were none in the United Kingdom.
2002
Tracey started her two year postgraduate academic research project of her own design at Southampton University looking at why children are cruel to their pets and using dogs in schools as classroom assistants. Tracey was the first person in the country to undertake academic research on Dogs in the School Environment and she discovered through her research that there are tremendous beneficial effects to children from introducing a dog into a school classroom and that this could help to reduce cruelty to animals by children.
2004
Dogs Helping Kids (D.H.K.) came into being as a small North Devon voluntary educational organisation. The first thing that DHK designed were educational school talks, emphasising on prevent a bite for children. The first two School Dogs were assessed – Princess Laya (a lurcher cross) and Ash (a collie) both of whom were rescue dogs. During the following years Laya and Ash went into over 30 North Devon Schools and met literally thousands of children, promoting responsible dog ownership, prevent a bite, how to read and understand a dog, and kind dog training methods.
2005
The D.H.K. Youth Work began, specialising in problem teenagers. A one year course on Dog Training and Behaviour was designed by Tracey using Princess Laya as her main teaching assistant. This course has been running since 2006 at the North Devon College (now known as Petroc) working with disaffected youths who have emotional, social and behavioural issues. Helping on this course are the Youth Assistant Dog Team who are a group of over 30 highly trained dogs who meet, greet and interact with the teenagers on a regular basis during the year.
2008
This year saw the start of making Dogs Helping Kids into a recognised charity. The year ended with a fabulous feature on D.H.K. appearing in the national dog magazine Your Dogs (December 2008 edition). This article concentrated on the Youth work that we have achieved over the years with Princess Laya and our incredible Youth Assistant Dog Team.
2009
Dogs Helping Kids became an official Charitable Trust.
2010
The D.H.K. charity has its first ever puppy in training. Monte, one of the famous Devon Trentishoe Labradoodles became the official first ever D.H.K. puppy. Monte will be highly trained to become our first Canine Therapy Dog.
2011
The 'Waggy Tails, Calmer Minds' fund raising appeal was launched with the help of the North Devon Journal. This appeal is an ongoing appeal with the aim of raising enough money to train up 15 DHK School Dogs each year and to help the charity go from strength to strength over the coming years. During the year the training of the DHK School Dogs began and our educational talks for children in local schools were incredibly popular. We were lucky enough to have more DHK articles in national dog magazines, including appearing in the magazine of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, Dog Trainer (issue 48) and the Journal of the Society for Companion Animals (Spring 2011 issue).
2012
The year got off to an amazing start with a fabulous feature article appearing in the National Dog magazine Your Dogs (January 2012 edition). This article concentrated on the School Dog Training that we are now doing and our ever increasing work in schools with our dogs to help children. A number of our DHK School Dogs are now working in local schools and the library and we continue to train up more amazing dogs - the training takes almost a year and with 6 assessments to pass it is incredibly difficult for both dog and owner. We are also now offering weekend workshops for teachers interested in having their own Attending DHK School Dog and an DHK Affiliate School Dog Training scheme for fabulous dogs and their owners from other parts of the country - it is definitely all go!
If you would like to make a donation
please contact us.
©DHK Dogs Helping Kids, Charitable Trust
Callanish, Eastacombe, Tawstock, Barnstaple,
North Devon, EX31 3NX
