Shepherd Dog Born Without Front Legs Is A Special Education Teacher

The 5-year-old Mini Sheperd dog of Australian origin, Tobi was born without his front legs. His hooman and him, Paige Bradford teach Bradford’s primary school students important life and academic lessons.

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ABC 7 and Paige Bradford

Bradford told ABC 7:

“One of the things that was really fun was to work on some of my students’ goals while they were playing with Tobi because they didn’t even notice they were doing hard work. For example, one of my students had hemiparesis and had limited use of his right side. So, I brought him treats, and he had to use both hands to open the bag of treats and then use his right hand to pull out a treat and hand it to the dog. It was fun for Tobi and for my student.“

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According to ABC 7, Tobi was adopted by Bradford a few years ago thanks to an article by The Humane Society of North Texas about special needs shelter pet online.

Bradford said Tobi ‘has served as my pet, visited my students in the classroom and made deep connections with them, and is now also serving as an emotional support animal.’

ABC 7 and Paige Bradford

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Lil shepherd dog, Tobi was born without two ribs, front legs, and suffers from degenerative disk disease because of walking on his back legs ever so often. Having said that, Tobi is a kind, loving, and happy dog, and has always been welcomed by Bradford’s students:

“One of the best things that has come out of Tobi being such a large part of our classroom community is acceptance. The students in my class don’t see Tobi as different or think that they should feel sorry for him because they see him as a really cute dog.”