Storytime for Dogs involves all family members

HUBBARD

The first time Nancy Grapevine and Mary Anne Russo hosted “Storytime for Dogs,” they forgot their audience and used a tennis ball as a prop.

“All the dogs started barking,” said Russo, a librarian with Grapevine at Hubbard Public Library.

At the library, the two of them host reading events for pre-kindergarten children, incorporating as many props as they can.

But inside the back classroom of The Learning Dog, a pet training center at 757 N. Main St., the audience was dogs.

On Thursday, the librarians hosted their second “Storytime for Dogs,” one of many outreach programs sponsored by the library. It stems from “Paws for Reading,” a reading program allowing children to read aloud to professionally trained therapy dogs, Russo explained.

But the program excluded family pets, which are not allowed inside the library.

Hoping to incorporate them, Russo worked with the owner of The Learning Dog to develop “Storytime for Dogs” and had its first reading in January.

For more on the program, read Friday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.