PAWS HOOVES FINS & FEATHERS!

Please enjoy our latest article.
Your questions/comments would be awesome -- Angele Wood

The Language of Children
©2008 Angele Wood

We all get the question, “So, what do you do?” It’s what humans ask each other. Me -- I answer, “I train animals.” Eyes light up and the next question is, “What kind?” My answer, if I am being smart, is sometimes, “the ones who are driving their humans bonkers” but is most usually, “sentient companions -- like horses, dogs, bunnies and the humans they have, often children.”

That one gets a smile and a sharp retort, “You train Children!?” I smile, “Yes.”

Children are beautiful to me. They are the human animal before it is shadowed by the heavy side of society and the conditions of the world.

A young child can understand Any language. They speak the language of the body – French, Spanish, Armenian, English. Children speak the language of the animals before anyone has “taught” them.

Before a child learns to guard its ego, watching this child interact with the world and with the social animals that contact it is, simply, the most beautiful thing. The child will learn the physical skills to speak the language that is practiced around it. As the child becomes older, and the ego begins to defend itself, this open understanding of languages begins to close.

Working with a child when the ego is young and whole; when its ability to receive, understand and exchange in the languages still exists, is a precious privilege. Teaching young Billie how to pick up and hold his birthday boa; showing Ellie how to bring her horse in with her posture; teaching the puppy and his new boy to walk and play together while practicing Come, Sit, Stay, etc., are not so much “teaching” as they are showing the child that they already know.

Each project with a child and their animal will invariably, more than once, bring a tiny tear and a smile to my eyes and heart as the child, who understands their animal, smiles and says, “yeah”.

Yes, I do like my job.
-Angele Wood

PAWS HOOVES FINS & FEATHERS
Natural Animal Training and Care
Angele Wood and Company

Teaching You and Your Animal Good Manners!
*Working Side by Side with you while you learn to train your own animal.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------