COLUMBUS - Gilly is a six-year old Scottish Terrier with a talent for painting and a penchant for helping middle school children challenged with behavioral disorders. Gilly is also a certified “Canine Good Citizen” and a trained and registered “Therapy Dog.”
She enjoys bowling, golf, basket ball, jumping through hoops, hide and seek, and she knows some sign language.
Beth Millard, Gilly's human assistant and instructor of the Better Decisions program at Columbus Middle School, helps by setting up the paint booth in which she works.
“Gilly very definitely has the Scottish terrier personality,” Millard said. “She loves to do tricks and paints wonderful pictures all just for the price of a treat.”
The canine artist's paint booth is a plastic tarp on the floor with a two foot high ring enclosure set up in the middle. Beth places a canvas in the center and squirts tempera paint on the tarp around the canvas inside the ring. Gilly then enters the ring and contemplates her muse, which usually comes in the form of chicken liver treats.
As Beth circles the ring Gilly pads softly through the paint and over the canvas.
In just a few passes around the ring a pattern begins to emerge from the once blank canvas and Gilly “decides” when it's time to change colors.
On this particular day Gilly had been commissioned to paint several pictures at once. As one color dries Gilly is placed in a foot bath to wash her feet while she and her assistant consider which color should come next.
When the choice is made the tarp is changed and the process begins again until the canine artist and Millard agree that the work is complete.
“Sometimes the hardest part for Gilly is naming the picture when she's finished,” Millard said. “So if she gets stumped I make suggestions until we agree on a suitable name for the work.”
Gilly's most recent works will be displayed at the Columbus Middle School's media center and various classrooms and offices at the school.
Painting singular masterpieces in tempera paint is just a hobby for Gilly. Her full-time job is filling the role of a trained, registered Therapy Dog in the middle school's “Better Decisions” (BD) classroom.
The special education program is designed to help behaviorally disordered students choose appropriate behaviors during the school day, perform well academically and improve their social skills. The program serves students in grades six through eight.
Millard said Gilly brings fun and a relaxation to the classroom with her easy-going personality and unconditional love for the students.
“The program uses both positive reinforcements and negative consequences for teaching behavioral control,” Millard said. “Gilly's presence in the classroom is a great motivation for the students to get their work done so they can work with her. It never ceases to amaze me that animals like Gilly can reach kids when others just can't.”
The Better Decisions program is open to any of the schools students who have been identified as being behaviorally disordered or other special education students who exhibit similar characteristics. A student's placement in the program is determined by a multidisciplinary team made up of school staff and the students' parents or guardians.
“Adolescents tend to focus on themselves and their problems,” Millard said. “Animals can help them redirect their focus to their environment.”
Millard said animals like Gilly can lend an air of emotional safety by accepting the students unconditionally.
“Pets lower our heart rate and blood pressure,” Millard said. “Being in a situation where they can become a ‘dog trainer' or teach Gilly some new tricks allows the students to try out a new positive role for themselves.”
In her spare time Gilly can also be found visiting and performing her tricks at area nursing homes and retirement centers.
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