Employee Lusha
For the third year running, the Komi Youth Library has had an unusual employee: Lukerya Petruneva, a dog. Lusha is the dog of one of the librarians, Evgenia Petruneva. She adopted the dog from a shelter in Vorkuta, and now Lusha helps teenagers read more.
Lukerya's owner has been working at the library since 2014. She came here unexpectedly, looking for a job, and a friend told her they were looking for employees. At the time, Evgenia had two degrees: preschool teacher and sales management. She passed the interview and became a librarian.
Lusha appeared much later, when Evgenia and her husband built a house in the village and she needed a companion for skiing trips. Wolves began stalking the village, and skiing alone in the forest was scary.
"I thought I needed a dog. It was more fun, too. And then there was a post on VKontakte asking for a home for a dog from Vorkuta. It was Lusha. The woman who was rehoming her took a photo of her and wrote that she was a year old and just below the knee. I thought, 'Look, below the knee—she's beautiful.' I wrote to the caretaker who was giving her away that I wanted her. And they sent Lusha to me in the mail car. When they brought her home, and my sister, not I, greeted her, I was amazed: how big she was! It just turned out that Natalya, who was rehoming Lusha, is a tall woman. So Lusha stayed with us; we couldn't send her back. We started getting used to each other. We came up with a name—Lukerya, or Lusha for short. Her original name was Ushko, but that didn't suit her at all," Evgenia recalls.
In the very first days, Lusha showed her true colors—she scratched the front door. It turned out she was terrified of being alone, Evgenia believes, perhaps because she was often abandoned. She had to take her to work with her; the library management allowed it. And at some point, director Olga Vinnichenko decided that since the dog was just lying there, they needed to come up with some kind of project.
"We came with her to the White Owl room, Lusha saw the sofas and immediately jumped on them. We sat down, picked up a book, and I started reading to her, while Lusha sat and listened. Then, of course, the secret was revealed. Lusha loves to lie on the sofa. At home, we don't let her on the sofa; she has three little beds, and she sleeps on them. But at the curator's, she slept with the other dogs on an old sofa. Then she saw the sofa, a soft one, and remembered life before us. That's how the 'Listen, Lusha' project was born. First, we read literature by our local authors who write about teenagers. Then we organized an exhibition," Evgeniya says.
The project initially gained popularity, attracting many people to the library. But in the second year, it began to decline. Then Evgenia came up with another idea: she and Lusha started bringing books to the Alexander Katolikov Orphanage.
Dogs specially trained to listen attentively while being read to were first introduced at a library in Salt Lake City (USA) over 15 years ago, and since then this method has spread worldwide. Finnish libraries even employ listening dogs as staff members. For Russian libraries, this is a completely new concept. Dogs can be trusted to "teach" reading to younger schoolchildren who already have basic reading skills. While they can't teach the alphabet, they can motivate those who struggle with reading for psychological reasons. Reading difficulties are often related to children's embarrassment about reading in front of the class and teacher, or fear of making mistakes. Dogs, however, don't care how the child reads—fast or slow, well or poorly. Children enjoy having a dog listening to their imperfect reading, and they find the dog an appreciative listener.
"We went there once a week last year, and the kids read books to us. They love Lusha because there are no animals there. Then I give the children treats, and Lusha uses them to demonstrate the commands she knows how to perform. Now, with this project, 'Reading Aloud to a Four-Legged Friend,' we won a grant from the VTB Foundation. We'll be reading not only books about teenagers but also other books, since there are children of all ages there," explains Lusha's owner.
Besides reading, Lusha also loves the forest. She enjoys going there with her owner, both mushroom picking and skiing. Evgenia says Lusha is losing her hunting instinct. She even managed to strangle two chickens on a neighbor's property.
"If we were into hunting, she'd happily go with us. She even follows a command: I hide sweets, and she looks for them. She finds them quickly. She doesn't like cats. She chases them, but doesn't touch them. But she keeps her distance from our other cats. They're neutral. She loves Laska very much; she must have suffered a lot, since her first owners abandoned her at a year old. Lusha's handler told me she got her when the shelter in Vorkuta had no heating. She saw her, her smooth coat, shaking all over. And she took her in. My husband even fell in love with her, although he was initially against having a dog. And now: my Lusha. She understands everything. She has never barked or growled at anyone.
The requirements for dogs are quite basic: as with any canine therapy project, the dog is tested for its suitability for working with people. It must be outgoing, non-aggressive, moderately affectionate, and not too jumpy. You can train your dog to sit and listen at home, and even train it to choose a book to read.
