The life of Posse

Today was the first day my parents weren't here in Finland. Yesterday morning they left quite early, but still they where there that day. My mom warned me before I left that for me everything will change and life for them will continue as normal, but without me. How strange it is for some, I have the same strange feeling now. I found it wonderfull to see my parents and to show them the country and people who stolen my heart, but now they are gone again life continues as before. I went to school, I hang around with friends, go to sauna, I still have a struggle with my Dutch flag on the wall (it doesn't want to stay next to the Finnish flag) and I go to my practical training. So life is normal again and nothing special happens.

Although, I still suprised evertime how normal it is regarded to bring your dog to work at my practical placement. They told that is very common in Finland that if you work in a child home facility where childeren with behavior problems live, to bring a dog with you as personal every know and then. At my practical this meens that we have a dog visit at least three times per week. Of course this is als paired with a couple of rules. For instance if some one is allergic for dogs, the dog can't come. This applies for the youngsters and personal. Also the dog has to be social, so it doesn't harm the youngster. But also the child has to  threat the dog well, so it doesn't harm the dog. To assess the later, they do it by simply observation: How do the dog and the youngsters when they are together. A worker there who recently get her certificat as dogtrainer said to me that she saw a lot of cases where the youngster where very violent and aggressive, but are very kind and welbehaved towards the dog. This suprised me a lot, because they teach us in the Netherlands that violent youngster are violent against humans and animals. She said this is sometimes be true, but only in a minority of cases. Most kids and youngsters are very social to animals because they trust them more then humans. She learned how to respond to this conflict of behavior and to copy the good and social behavior the youngster has to dogs to correct behavior towards humans. She does this with our new colleage who als was today at my practical training for the very first time.

The moment he came everyone was sold. He greeted and cuddeled everyone and everyone liked. And for the record they are all Finns! I'm the only foreigner around there. He made a good impression with everyone and everyone is waiting for the next time he comes around. And he will become very often, first to get to know the place and later on to start the big work and therapy sessions. He also amazed us with some few tricks and now the girls adore him even more and also the boys like him. All the personal was sold already. But yeah, how can you resist the cute puppy eyes of a French Bulldog? Personally, I can't wait to see the dogtherapy in action, because I never heard of it before and take a dog in a special care unit for youngsters in unheard of in the Netherlands. My colleage assured me I can observe it when she starts. She is also trying then to explain the exact purpose of the therapy sessions, although she finds it very hard to do so in English. I appriciate this a lot, because I know how struggle she has with English. She tries and she does her best, and that is what counts. I also hope to learn something from the little dog, because he is probably the only worker at my practical placement all youngsters instantly like.