Last week I did not get the chance to blog at all, not that I didn't want to (that was for Ms. Stanton :)) but I was extremely sick. Today is Saturday the 27th and I have been sick since Tuesday the 16th! I went to the doctor three times and got blood drawn, a chest x-ray and even a nose swab. Have you ever had a nose swab? It is the weirdest thing and it hurts, so word of advice: don't let them do that to you! In the end everything came back negative and that it was a viral infections so no antibiotics would work, but they still put me on them to prevent any further infections. This whole sickness brought me to acupuncture, which is where they stick needles in certain places on the body to try and help different things such as stress and in my case sickness. When I got there I noticed a dog bed in the main office and I was a little bit confused as to why there would be a dog at an acupuncture place. With curiosity I asked the lady, Gennifer, who was doing my treatment and she said the man that works there brings his black lab into work sometimes. I was wondering if they dog was ever used to help kids with treatments because this facility works with a lot of children. She said no but then gave me the name of a place in Berkeley, I think she said, that actually trains dogs to sniff out cancer! I find this amazing! It does not really have much to do with my project but I am still going to try and get in contact with them to inquire about an interview to see how they feel about dogs interacting with humans and their effects on us. So earlier today I was supposed to meet with my mentor but she called and said she was sick, so we thought it would be best to talk over the phone. She called when I was sleeping though and left a message with my parents to have me call her on her cell. She did not pick up probably because she is trying to rest so I left her a message and am hoping she will call back sometime this weekend as I will be staying in trying to get 100% better. I just finished making the corrections to the letter that I need to send the Mrs. Buccine about the interview I would like to do with her. If I don't say so myself it looks pretty good for my first business letter. After making the corrections on that I put together a list of things I need to do for my project. Many have to do with calling people about interviews or getting their help in some way so I need to jump on that and start getting a hold of those people. Earlier I was checking out the project rubric one more time just to make sure I am staying on track and I realized that I had totally forgotten about the research report we have to write. The report is not supposed to be about what our project is specifically on, but something relating to it. I was thinking and I am going to ask Ms. Stanton, my teacher for this course, if human rights have enough relation to my project so I can write on that. I am very passionate about human rights and am maybe looking into a career that way instead of being a prosecutor. That's a whole different subject right there, but anyhow I'm hoping she will say it is okay because I think I can write a very good paper on that. Well now I am off keep on pushing through a week and a half's worth of makeup homework!

End of the Week

Today is a Wednesday, it is not the beginning of the week but it is not really the end, thus it is a pointless day. Except for this week! My school is not going to be in session on Friday so it is basically a Thursday which is the end of the week! With this good news comes more. I drafted my first business letter yesterday and if I should say so myself, it looks pretty good! I sent it off to my mentor through email so she could proof it becasue I am sure she knows more about business letter formats then me. Who knew about all these crazy formating rules you have to follow just to type words on a paper and whisk it through the mail! Hopefully she will email me back soon with any changes so I can send it off to Andrea Buccine. On another note, I got an message back from the lady I emailed who deals with courthouse dogs. She said that they will not actually be coming down to the Bay area, but there is a courthouse dog that is graduating from its training courses in Santa Rosa next Friday. Unfortunatly I have school on Fridays, I know crazy revelation! They probably thought that I wasn't in school even though I clearly stated I was a senior in high school, but oh well. Although I don't know how much good sitting through a graduation ceremony for a dog would do for me. I can barely stand sitting through high school graduations with people let alone pets! It is an accomplishment I am sure because I was reading somewhere that not many dogs actually move on to being courthouse dogs, they usually do not live up to the standards. Also, the lady in the email clearly stated that the term therapy dogs in not right, it is courthouse dogs, I apologize for that mistake. Apparently the artilce in the SF Chronicle was wrong, who would have thought! Ok I am off, I have to study for a test on the ankle tomorrow. From courthouse dogs to ankles, can't make any connections there!

Progress

This morning I had a meeting with my mentor. It was over the phone because we both have such busy schedules but she helped me get started on the right foot. We were talking about how I needed to interview some people to get their opinions on allowing therapy dogs in the court room. One person who we both thought would be very beneficial is Andrea Buccine who is involved in working with therapy dogs in the court cases. We decided it would be best to draft a letter and send it off to her asking if there was a time I could go and talk to her or even converse over the phone. Upon that decision I thought I should find out more about Ms. Buccine, so I did a basic google search. It is crazy what comes up about a person in a basic "Google" search! The first link I selected led me to a page that listed all the links of sights were her name was mentioned. In many of them it talked about the work she does with her dog Vivian, a yellow lab. Vivian is said to be the first service dog to work for a California district attorney's office. I found out that she and District Attorney Ed Berberian started a therapy dog program for court cases. They based theirs off of "Courthouse Dogs" which was started in Seattle in 2003 by Ellen O’Neill-Stephens. These service dogs used in the Seattle program are from a company called Canine Companions for Independence and there is actually a branch out in Santa Rosa that I would like to go visit. When doing further research on the program in Seattle I found their website: www.courthousedogs.com. It is basically talking about everything I want to do so I am going to try and get in contact with the creators. On the side there was a notice that said they were going to be in the Bay Area February 9-12 but it did not have a link or anything so I am going to try and see how I can find out more about that. I just finished sending an email to the creators and am hoping to get some news back in the next few days. I am excited that I am no making some progress on my project! Coming up I am hopefully going to go to a the Law Library in Solano County as well as do some interviews with lawyers and judges. My mentor had a great idea to poll people who are eligible to be on a jury and see if a dog would change their decision on a trial. I am going to try and ask about 200 people and break out of my bubble to not just ask people I know but people who I see on the streets. I can't wait to see what people say, hopefully they will be on my side!

Useless Internet

I now have two mentors for my senior project. My government/econ teacher who I have had for two years now is my school mentor. My outside mentor is Suzanne, a civil lawyer who defends insurance companies. With both of their help I'm sure that I can make some progress with my project. Over the past couple of days I have been trying to research how to change internal court procedure. Every search engine imaginable came up with nothing that was of any help. I did find some cases were people actually did change court procedure so that gave me some hope. While sorting through the mess of links that were dead ends I found the supreme courts internal working procedures. It was like trying to read through a book written in old English, you can only read so much before thinking, "What did that just say?", and having to re-read it a thousand more times. I tried searching, "How to change internal court procedure", "Changing internal court procedure", "Amending internal court procedure", and not a single thing came up. At this point I am just going to wait until I meet with my mentor to see what other sites to find research. If finding information on the internet is this hard, I can only imagine trying to find text about how to amend the procedures.

Change of Passion

Although I am very passionate about giving back to the Children's Hospital and to all the patients, I am also very passionate about law. Whenever asked what I want to do when I grow up, I always respond, "I want to be a prosecutor". Normally people looked shocked when I would say that because it was such a big word and people didn't expect that to come out of my mouth. I have always grown up with law terms thrown around in my house becasue my Dad works in the field of law. I strongly believe in the prosecution side and I really want to help people in need. Today with my frustration of not being able to find a pet therapy program that I would be able to join I took a minute to read the newspaper. On the front page of the San Fransico Chronical there was an article titled, "Canine Comfort in the Court". As I started reading, it was about dogs being let into the court room to sooth young children and sometimes adults who needed to be comforted while testifying. It explains the benefits of having a dog let in the court room but also some of the objections by defense attorneys and judges. There is nothing in court procedures that says a dog is not allowed in the court room but because of that there is nothing saying a dog can be used during the trial. Becasue of that many judges choose not to let the therapy dogs in their court rooms becasue they do not want the case to be thrown out or appealed because of the animal. There was one line that particularly caught my eye in the article said by the senior deputy prosecutor in seattle who started the court house canine movement. She said, "One day, we'll have to make a compelling case why they (dogs) belong"(SF Chronical, A16). That is exactly what I want to do, I want to make that case. Now I know what my senior project is, and this time it's not changing.

To read this article here is the link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/26/MNTM1B4S15.DTL

Endless Searching

Today is the second Monday of our two week break. I decided to do some more research on my project to see what I am really taking on. After much consideration I chose to have my dog and I become a therapy pet team. Sierra is trained in the basics; sit, lay down, high five/shake, and sometimes heal (if I'm lucky). I thought that with a little more help she could suceed in being a great therapy dog. Upon doing more research I found many organizations that offer these programs and became very hopeful. First I went on the ARF(Animal Rescue Foundation) website. ARF is located in Walnut Creek and I used to volunteer there when I was a freshman in high school. I looked at all the requirements and saw that my dog and I fit every one except for Sierra being certified as a Canine Good Citizen by the AKC. I then called ARF to see how I could accomplish getting Sierra certified. They picked up and I was transfered to the coordinators office and, shocking! I got the voicemail. I decided it would be easier to email her, so I sent a lengthy email voicing what I was trying to do. I then called back to see if she may have been on a lunch break and was transfered to another person who helps coordinate the animal therapy teams. She informed me right away that I was not old enough, the age a handler has to be is 21. This not being said in their requirements let me down. But that didn't keep me from pursuing this. I then looked all over the internet and found other organizations such as the Friendship Foundation and S.M.A.R.T Dogs Inc. that led me nowhere and were dead ends. Then there were organizations that offered classes to train your pet but all the classes were over by now. At this point I started thinking about other options for my senior project. This is when the doorbell rang and my neighbors with three little girls came over to bring holiday treats. I saw how good Sierra was with them, laying down and letting them jump all over her and pull her tail. This is when I realized that even though I went to at least 13 different organizations about therapy pets there had to be way that I could do this. I started to talking to my Mom and we can up with a good alternative to ask the ARF coordinatiors. We were thinking that maybe if I had an adult over the age of 21 to go with me to these classes they would be more willing. I then emailed the coordinator again and told her about my idea. Now it is just a waiting game for her to email me back.

Meet me and my dog Sierra. You will be getting to know a lot about me throughout my project. And the dog...she is just cute!