Mary Reed-Weston laughed as she read aloud a story about a pushy moose who wanted a muffin.

“Oh my gosh, he wants jam to go with it!” the 6-year-old Schwegler School student exclaimed.

The Dalmatian dog that Mary was reading to Thursday in a Schwegler hallway didn’t get any jam or muffins, though — just some dog food.

“He’s quite the pig,” said Nanette Dittrick, a certified pet dog trainer. “He’ll work for almost anything.”

Dittrick brings her dog Adler once a week to Schwegler School, 2201 Ousdahl Road. Adler accompanies her as she helps students learn or improve their reading skills. She and Adler work with fifth-graders one week and kindergartners the next.

Sitting with a dog helps the children relax and become less nervous as they read, Dittrick said.

She recalled when one student was reading too fast.

“I stopped him and I said … ‘Adler can’t keep up with you,'” Dittrick said. “He looked at Adler and said, ‘Now we’re going to read this slower.’

“I had a terrible time in school with reading. I just went through all of grade school just struggling,” Dittrick said. “If there had been a dog, I probably wouldn’t have had any trouble at all.”

Schwegler school students, From left, Mary Reed-Weston, Drew Wise and Nico Carlson are joined by a Dalmatian named Adler and his handler, Nanette Dittrick, as they take turns reading a book. Adler joined the kindergarten class at Schwegler School, 2201 Ousdahl Road, during reading time on Thursday.

On Thursday, Mary and two other kindergartners gathered with Dittrick and Adler in the hallway. Mary read “If You Give a Moose a Muffin” with Dittrick’s help. The group listened to the tale of the moose who wanted things like a muffin, jam, socks and a sweater.

“Uh-oh, this moose is having it all,” Dittrick joked with the children.

Dittrick either listens to children read or reads books to them. Mary’s kindergarten teacher, Stacy Stidham, reads out loud every day to her 17 students. But the dog’s visits are an extra help, Stidham said.

Some children in her class are still learning the alphabet and some read simple books. And then there’s Mary, who reads at a second-grade level.

“Some of the kids in this class were walking when others were just being born,” Stidham said.

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Dittrick started bringing her dog to Schwegler and working with fifth-graders at the beginning of the school year. She added Stidham’s class before Christmas.

She volunteers her time at the school and is the owner of Puppy Love Dog Training, 698 E. 1250 Road.

She is a member of the Delta Society, a nonprofit, Bellevue, Wash.-based organization that seeks to improve human health through animals.

Dittrick started bringing her dog to Schwegler School because her husband knows one of the fifth-grade teachers there.