Animal Club members with Heart,
the 'Seeing Eye Dog'

This term the animal club has been quite busy.  We have been hard at work making and selling badges to raise money for the save a dog scheme.

We have also had Sandy from Wildlife Victoria come to speak to us. 

She taught us how to look after and protect our native wildlife.

Susan, a volunteer from the Seeing Eye Dogs, also came for a visit and brought her dog Heart, whom she is training to be a seeing eye dog.  We were able to see what a great job animals can do for people in our community.

Heads & Tails Animal Club members and Club Leaders

At Animal Club some people have been talking to us about animals they have rescued. We have already received our 1^st reward! We have been having colouring competitions and doing focus groups to save animals. We have been doing everything we can to save animals. Heads and Tails Animal Club have been having a great time being animal heroes. It is hard work, but fun. The fun is not over  yet, we're nearly  approved  for our 2^nd reward!

By Daniel, Brandon and Dillan (Grade 2).

Animal Club had some very interesting visitors on Friday 24 November.  Gypsy, a re-homed kelpie that was found wandering outside the school earlier this year, paid a visit to renew her acquaintance with the Animal Club members.  Dave Prior and Lara Fossati from Randwick Vet Hospital also dropped in to give a quick talk on general canine care.  Amidst the pats and hugs, they spoke about disease prevention and managed to demonstrate with an obliging Gypsy on how to give a dog an intestinal worm treatment and flea treatment and spoke about what happened to dogs that become infected with intestinal worms or heartworm and what owners can do about it. 

I am writing to tell you about our ‘Raising Awareness for the rights and care of all Animals’ T-Shirt activity.We started this activity at the end of Term 3 on Wednesday 27^th September, with a brainstorm of appropriate animal messages to convey on our T-Shirts.  Some of the most popular messages, which students selected for their T-Shirts, include:  Pets are for Life, Adopt a Homeless Pet, If You Buy the Pet You Keep the Pet, Animals Need Homes Just Like Us, Treat All Animals with Respect and Love, Treat All Animals How You Would Like to be Treated.  

During Term 4 Animal Club members continued this activity, using the school’s computers to graphically create the design for their T-Shirt.  As a club, it was decided that each member would select the message that they felt strongest about, as well as an animal image that they found aesthetically pleasing.  After each student completed their T-Shirt design on the computer, I colour printed each design onto a specially created Inkjet T-Shirt Transfer, which I then ironed on to the club member’s white T-Shirt. 

The last T-Shirt was completed by Monday 20^th of November and we delivered our messages to the school on Friday 24^th November at the school assembly, where we wore our T-Shirts and sat at the front of the assembly for the entire assembly. 

Also, during the assembly our club addressed the school and told them all about our T-Shirt activity, explaining the purpose of the activity and delivering our messages individually.  The end result of the T-Shirts was quite impressive and combined with the whole school assembly they have proved to be an effective visual way of delivering our animal messages whilst further raising awareness in the community.  Also, although there was only two weeks left of term, animal club members continued to enjoy their T-Shirts and deliver their messages by wearing their T-Shirts each Wednesday for our Animal Club meetings.   

Although this activity took us some time, we all really enjoyed the process and were very happy with the final results at the school assembly.  Below are some photographs of some of the students creating their graphic design on the computer, followed by some photographs of Clifton Hills Primary School Animal Club, at the school assembly, wearing their Animal Message T-Shirts.

We had an Animal Club excursion on Monday 20^th November 2006 to the ‘Animal Protection Society’.  This is a local, non-government, volunteer animal refuge that not only provides much needed shelter, care, and assistance for abandoned dogs and cats; it also ensures all animals that enter its sanctuary are provided a life long home, even if they are not adopted out.  This excursion venue was selected by our Animal Club as Animal Club members have been supporting this society through out the year. 

Our excursion began at 1.00pm and after a 15 minute bus ride Animal Club members were rewarded for their efforts through out the year, by being able to see with their own eyes what their contributions and energies had been assisting.  We were met at the front gate by Clare Mills, our volunteer contact at the Animal Protection Society, and our visit began with students presenting their latest gathering of food and supplies to Clare and some other volunteers.  Clare was very excited about this and after loading the trolley up she went on to lead a discussion about some of the important issues related to cats, dogs and having pets, whilst also answering the multitude of questions club members had. 

From there Clare took us through the ‘Dog’ section of the refuge that was housing about a 20 dogs, all just waiting for nice home and a loving family to come and get them.  Although this was quite sad, we all took comfort in knowing how well the dogs were looked after and cared for at the refuge.  During this part of the excursion, Clare, who knew all of her dogs by name, provided us with a running commentary on each dog, their behaviours, mannerisms, likes and dislikes.   It was then over to the cattery, home to 60+ cats, many of whom were likely to spend the rest of their days there. 

Again although the situation was quite sad, the volunteers at the society have done a wonderful job in providing pristine conditions, lovely food, excellent shelter, many toys and all the love and attention they can muster.   After a small talk on the cats, Animal Club members were able to walk amongst, play with, pat and even feed the cats that knew the society as ‘home’.  Our excursion concluded with Clare answering any last questions before students washed their hands and boarded the bus.