PUPPIES Why Does Chris Sweeney Keep Bringing to Eagle Hill?

Everyone seems to have a favorite story about the puppy visits at Eagle Hill.

For more than a dozen years, Lower School teacher Chris Sweeney and her colleagues have brought puppies into Eagle Hill’s classes. Her voice softened when she described one of her special memories.

“One of our students didn’t feel comfortable in school. She was very quiet, reserved, and didn’t express herself well. You just didn’t see her enjoy herself. But when she sat with a puppy on her lap, all she did was laugh. Then there were tears of joy, like an emotional wave washed a wall away.”

Sweeney, now in her 25th year at Eagle Hill, credits a former Lower School colleague, Maureen Dumser, with beginning the puppy pipeline to the school. About sixteen years ago, Maureen lived on campus. She hosted puppies for “home socializing” from Guiding Eyes for the Blind, a nonprofit organization based in New York’s Hudson Valley that provides guide dogs to people with vision loss.

Trained volunteers like Dumser provided socialization and reinforced simple aspects of the pups’ training —leash time, exploration, play, riding in cars, sitting for meals, crate time, name response, and other practice. The experiences in new settings gave the pups their best shot to succeed in the agency’s 18-month program to become guide dogs.

Throughout the years, other Eagle Hill faculty members, including Gina Burke and Liza Jarombek, hosted puppies from Guiding Eyes at their homes. The three Sweeney kids enjoyed puppy visits a few times a year, too, as more teachers, including Chris Sweeney, were inspired to volunteer for the organization.

As trained home socializers, teachers bring two to three puppies, ages six to nine weeks old, to Eagle Hill each year. During their visits, Sweeney hosts the puppies with her family in their on-campus home for three to five days at a time.

“It’s about socializing rather than training,” Sweeney noted. “We basically just give them love, kindness, and physical contact so they get used to many settings and gain exposure to diverse experiences.”

Along with teachers Tracy Cone, Gina Burke, and Maureen Nish, Chris Sweeney started bringing the puppies to Eagle Hill School. It’s been an annual tradition ever since.

In recent years, returning from December break can bring on “the doldrums” Sweeney said. So, January is when the teachers arrange to collect three six-week-old puppies and their food, toys, crates and x-pens from Guiding Eyes and bring them to Eagle Hill.

“It’s a special time that we all love, even if it’s exhausting,” Sweeney said. Each daily visit to Eagle Hill begins at Sweeney’s house, where teachers meet up at 7:20 in the morning. “That begins the parade that brings the puppy posse to school,” she added, laughing.

They create schedules and take turns with the puppies, and there is a trained teacher in each building equipped with a foldable x-pen. A space is set up in the middle of each classroom where the puppies can nap, use their water dishes, and play with toys, while the kids use the x-pen door to go in and out.

With a variety of books at hand, classes come and sit around the puppies. The kids ask questions while the puppies are passed from lap to lap.

Over five days, the puppies have as much contact as possible with kids so they learn to acclimate to change. It’s all part of providing the socialization needed to become guide dogs, but believe it or not, the Eagle Hill students may benefit the most.

According to Sweeney, “We work really hard on socializing at Eagle Hill and developing the connections between kids in their learning environment. Working with the puppies supports those goals and gives students more practice — and it’s made easier because puppies bring everybody’s guard down.”

For many at Eagle Hill School, the puppy visits are a highlight.

“The experiences are positive and heart-warming all week long,” Sweeney reflected, noting the language learning that takes place, too. “While sitting together with puppies and chatting, we watch kids taking turns and increasing conversational skills.”

Eagle Hill students and the cuddly canines have enjoyed annual visits for many years. While it’s all “mushy and fun,” Sweeney said, the experiences have reinforced the importance of community service and being accepting of people with differences.

It doesn’t get any sweeter than that.