Righetti High School students learn animal emergency training on Memorial Day
While most students don’t have school on Memorial Day, some students at Ernest Righetti High School came to school to take a special animal preventative care and triage class.
Righetti High Teacher Samantha VanPatten’s Animal Lovers Club came into class Monday morning to help take care of a variety of animals including snakes, lizards, a rabbit, a chinchilla, a bird, turtles, a rat, and a fish.
“It’s been several years since we’ve had animals in the classroom and with those animals come connections – so every student is welcome in this room and they know that and they get to build a relationship with an animal,” VanPatten explained.
“My experience in this club has been really amazing – i love all the animals in here cause my dream career is to be a marine biologist and this program is gonna let me into that,” said Aaron Hildebrandt, a member of the Animal Lovers Club.
On Monday they had a special guest come in, Genete Bowen from DogE911.
“The goal for today is basically to be able to assist the animals that they take care of here with the animal lovers club that we’re here for today or if they were to take care of the animals they have at home or if they were at friends house and petsitting or if maybe they came up on an animal that was injured they would have some knowledge and know what to do to help,” Bowen explained.
For these kids getting this type of hands on experience has changed their viewpoints on certain animals.
“What’s really cool is that I got to hold a snake for a really long time and that kind of shocked me cause I got to hold a snake for a really long time and I thought it would bite me but once I got more into it, I was calm with it,” said DogE911 volunteer Andrea Zendejas.
That makes for a rewarding experience for these educators. “If you can attach that knowledge to an experience you can keep that knowledge forever [as opposed to] just memorizing what’s gonna be on the quiz and the test,” Vanpatten said.
The students raised funds for this class taught by DogE911, a preventative care, and disaster preparedness program that educates first responders and pet owners how to be comfortable performing triage on any animal.
For more information on DogE911, click here.
