Empathy. Hope. Perseverance.
Every week Teacher’s Pet strives to teach at-risk youth each of these invaluable character traits.
DOGS & KIDS LEARNING TOGETHER.
Teacher’s Pet strives to teach at-risk youth in the metro Detroit area empathy, hope, and perseverance. Each of these invaluable character traits empowers them to lead highly influential and successful lives. The intervention program pairs youth with homeless shelter dogs for multi-week workshops led by our trained professionals. Often for the first time, both youth and dogs experience compassionate love.
During these workshops, youth will:
Participate in positive, reward-based dog training
Help modify dogs’ behavior
Increase dogs’ chances of becoming adopted
Ensure dogs can remain in their homes permanently
Improve their impulse control and patience
Meet twice a week (for two hours each time) at various schools and juvenile facilities throughout Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties
By providing youth and dogs a safe, therapeutic environment time after time, Teacher’s Pet helps them learn, grow and create fruitful futures together....
Mission Statement:
Teachers Pet utilizes the science of the human animal bond to transform the lives of at-risk and special needs populations, as well as the lives of hard-to-adopt shelter dogs.
Vision statement:
Teachers Pet is a 501(c)3 that facilitates animal assisted interventions for the benefit of vulnerable populations, including but not limited to adjudicated and at-risk youth. Pairing together with harder-to-adopt, local area shelter dogs, we strive to provide therapeutic gains, vocational training, and empowerment in order to build stronger communities and improve dog adoptability.
On June 25th we wrapped up a powerful strategic planning board meeting where we reflected on the incredible growth of our programs and laid the groundwork for an exciting future! We discussed budget (boooo! ), a successful external audit, new program requests and more.
Current program updates:
*Our Macomb County program is going strong with the Macomb County Community Mental Heath Youth and the dogs at the Humane Society of Macomb.
*Our Pontiac program just celebrated graduation with the girls at Children’s Village and the dogs from Oakland County Animal Control.
*We’re launching a new pilot 5 week extension to our core 10-week curriculum at Children’s Village.
*Shelter School continues to thrive in Macomb, bringing learning and compassion to shelter volunteers.
And… we’ve got BIG NEWS coming soon! We’re thrilled to be collaborating with another youth program and a new shelter partner. Stay tuned, this one’s going to be special.
If you’re passionate about our mission and want to help shape the future of Teacher’s Pet, we’d love to connect. We’re looking for new board members ready to make a difference. We have program requests from facilities all over Metro-Detroit and we need motivated individuals that are ready to dream big and dedicate their expertise to grow our programming to reach more youth and shelter dogs. Reach out to teacherspetmichigan@yahoo.com if you are interested.
The Teacher’s Pet Ewok and Run 5K was a galactic success and we couldn’t have done it without the incredible support of our sponsors, volunteers and runners!! Your generosity helped bring this event to life and directly supports our mission to make a difference through education and compassion.
From the bottom of our hearts (and across the stars), thank you for helping us go the distance. You’re truly the force behind the fun!
Thank you to our Ewok & Run Sponsors!
🏃♂️🏃🏃🏽♂️🏃🏻♀️🏃🏼🏃🏾♀️
Thank you to our Ewok & Run Sponsors! 🏃♂️🏃🏃🏽♂️🏃🏻♀️🏃🏼🏃🏾♀️
⭐Clarkston honored community members at the 40th annual Community Awards and our very own Christine Rogers received an award! ⭐
Chris is a board member and facilitator for our Pontiac programming. We are honored to have someone that is so passionate and dedicated to improve lives and inspire youth in the community.
⭐Community Collaboration – Clarkston Community Schools Academic Service Learning Program⭐
Accepting the award for Community Collaboration was Christine Rogers, Academic Service Learning Coordinator for Clarkston Community Schools.
ASL has been an important part of Clarkston Schools for 23 years and aims to include service learning into meeting curriculum standards and state benchmarks. Rogers uses the example of first graders practicing measurement by making tie blankets that can then be donated.
This year, district students participated in 60 projects with over 100 teachers doing projects equating to over 5,300 students participating in at least one project.
“We reach and work with, in a collaborative way, so many groups across the community that it embeds Clarkston kids in our community, it connects, it build intergenerational relationships and it just is a win for everyone.” Rogers said.
Our current Children’s Village program runs until June12th!
We meet twice a week with the youth and shelter dogs for the10 weeks.
Your generosity and support set the kids and dogs up for success!
⭐️ 2024 was a successful year! ⭐️
As 2024 comes to a close, we would like to say how incredibly grateful we are for everyone that has made this year such a success.
Thank you to the juvenile facilities for always welcoming us with open arms and sharing our excitement over the accomplishments of each youth and dog team.
Thank you to our partner shelters for allowing us to work with your dogs and for busting your butts every day to care for the abandoned, neglected and abused.
Thank you to our volunteers for giving your free time, without you our program wouldn't exist.
Thank you to TP staff and facilitators for sharing your knowledge and compassion.
THANK YOU to our friends, family and community that continue to support our mission. * 2024 was successful because of you! * We head into 2025 with high expectations of impacting the lives of even more critically at-risk youth and hard to adopt shelter dogs! We are excited to start new programs in the next few weeks!
The boys at Children’s Village graduated their 10 week program! We are so proud of their growth along with so many dog adoptions!
Macomb County Community Mental Health / Humane Society of Macomb December 2023 Graduation
Empathy. Hope. Perseverance.
Every week Teacher’s Pet strives to teach at-risk youth each of these invaluable character traits—traits that will empower them to lead highly influential and successful lives.
To achieve these goals, the intervention program pairs troubled youth with hard-to-adopt shelter dogs for multi-week workshops.
During these workshops, youth will:
Participate in positive, reward-based dog training
Help modify dogs’ behavior
Increase dogs’ chances of becoming adopted
Ensure dogs can remain in their homes permanently
Improve their impulse control and patience
Meet twice a week (for two hours each time) at various schools and juvenile facilities throughout Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties
By providing youth and dogs a safe, therapeutic environment time after time, Teacher’s Pet helps them learn, grow and create fruitful futures together....
