For the last novel unit my 5th graders will be doing this year, we’re going to read Shiloh by Phyllis Naylor Reynolds about how an 11-year-old boy saves a beagle from its abusive, neglectful owner. I want to do an extension based on animal rescue in Taiwan and preventing animal cruelty, but I’m not quite sure where to start. Any ideas of what agencies, websites, contacts, etc. to help gather information relevant to Taiwan?
We are currently working on a website but it’s not complete. However, the links to some local animal protection agencies can be found in there. Our website is in English, but some of the links may be in Chinese.
Education is the key and starting with the young ones in kindergarten. Eventually I hope we will be able to go to local schools and educate kids on animals and how to treat them humanely and with respect.
There will be a grand opening of the website by either Eric or Stray Dog soon. 
Could you create a downloadable lesson plan that other teachers could use?
ImanIOU, I would love such a lesson plan if you would be willing to share it. My boss has a new puppy who comes to school with him and it is a real learning experience for the kids. The changes since he arrived have been amazing in terms of how they are learning to respond to his presence. He’s a big puppy and at first they would all scream whenever they saw him, run around and then panic when he chased them and generally panic. We have never, never allowed them to be alone with the puppy (for his own protection) and with some gentle guidance, they are all starting to really enjoy him and are learning about caring for animals.
Such a lesson plan would be ideal in this situation as it would be a natural extension of what they are learning now. The school I work in would be more than willing to allow me to do a “special” project for this type of lesson plan, I would think! Please give this some thought, as I think there is something really valuable to be learned here and I imagine a number of people would be happy to make good use of such a great idea. :bravo:
Taking my dog into school has always been very rewarding too. And I’ve seen Maoman’s dog switch from to ‘advertising gimmick’ to ‘teaching aid’ to ‘toy’ to ‘amiable mutt’ and back again at his school. Animals and kids are a great mix.
The Stray Dog Society (or whatever they call themselves 
) talked about a schools program as one of the things they wanted to do. Come one Imani, you have loads of free time for something like this. Get writing!
Well, I am going to ask my landlady as she works for some government office overseeing the protection of animals in Taiwan. My school had Dr. Dog come and visit back in 2001 to show how they rescued dogs and now have them helping people, but some of the kids were still scared and few others would taunt the dogs. They gave great tips on how to deal with strange dogs such as walk away if it’s growling and don’t stare down an aggressive dog, and hold out a hand for a dog to sniff first instead of just petting it without introduction. I will see what I can pull up from the internet and work into a lesson. I will try to put it on the internet if things work out. Thanks for the link, 914. It’ll be a good starting place for my kids to research animal protection in Taiwan.
Shiloh is a story about an 11-year-old West Virginian (read: Appalachian) boy who finds a thin beagle that has been abused by its owner and how because the law won’t protect it, he does what he can to rescue it from the man. It won the Newbery Award (the highest honor given to children’s literature by the ALA) in 1992 and has two sequels, Saving Shiloh and Shiloh Season and has also been made into a movie. It’s a fairly short novel of about 130 pages and makes for a pretty decent book for reading aloud if your students are too young to read it themselves. There are numerous study guides out there if you want to ask them questions about what’s going on in the story and want to take polls. I probably won’t be finished with my lesson plans for just this book until the middle of next month, but I will share what I can (with appropriate copyright links if I use published materials)…I’ll see if I can make it multiaged (grades 2-3 as well as the grades 4-7 that I’ll be writing up), but no guarantees on that. The book itself is 4.5 on the Fletcher-Kincaid readability scale, meaning grade 4, 5th month, but kids can understand higher reading levels when books are read aloud to them.
I’ll keep you all posted as it comes.
I am working on the extension for my animal abuse unit for May. I am gathering links now and have found some really good ones with lesson plans related to the story Shiloh.