Photo provided About 900 children made a date with Lottie the Great Dane to practice their reading skills at the Bartholomew County Public Library since 2019.
A beloved canine and mascot for literacy who has listened as hundreds of children practiced their reading skills at the Bartholomew County library is retiring — and revealing a secret.
Lottie, the library’s visiting Great Dane best known for the Reading with Lottie programs is actually deaf, something she never let on to the youngsters who were reading to her during the programs which began in 2016.
Lottie hosted more than 200 Reading with Lottie programs with about 900 readers in total at the library.
Cindy Day, Integrated Library System administrator for the library and Lottie’s owner, said she got the idea for the reading program from similar initiatives at other libraries.
“And I just knew from her demeanor that she loves kids,” she said. “And so I thought ‘Let’s give it a try.’ So I took and had her Good Citizenship certified and it went from there.”
During Reading with Lottie sessions, each child would get a ticket — shaped like a bone, of course — and get to read to Lottie for 15 minutes.
Great Danes are working dogs, developed hundreds of years ago in Germany for boar hunting. The breed is known for friendliness and a gentle and loving nature with children, along with its large size.
Library staff members said some of the readers knew that Lottie was deaf, but still wanted to read to her.
“She always acted like she was listening to them, though,” Day said. “And a lot of the kids knew she was deaf, too. It didn’t matter. They still wanted to come in and spend time and read to her.”
And, since Lottie is very relaxed and her favorite thing to do is “lay around,” it was a perfect fit, Day said.
She said that Lottie’s retirement is due to her age, and the 12-year-old Great Dane now spends her days “sleeping a lot and being overly spoiled.”
When asked what comment Lottie would provide if she could talk, Day replied, “I think she would say, ‘Please scratch me’, actually, or ‘Give me a treat.’”
While Lottie is living in the lap of luxury, the library could see another pooch step into her old role. Day owns four other dogs besides the Great Dane and is working with her bloodhound, Chet, to see if he’s up to the task.
Day said that Chet is “very high energy, but he’s also very sweet.” If he’s a good fit for the program, it will probably be about six months to a year before he can begin his duties.
“(Lottie) thoroughly enjoyed every day that she got to come in here,” she said. “So yeah, it was a great program, and I’m hoping to keep it going with another dog.”
