A CLASS of primary school pupils had a close encounter of the canine kind recently, when a team of huskies descended on their playground.

Along with their handler, Matt Hammersley, the nine ‘lively’ dogs visited Dragonfly class, of Year Five and Six pupils at Soudley School, who took part in a number of activities with them.

Class teacher, Adrian Osborne, said: “Matt, from Apex Outdoors in Berry Hill) visited on Red Nose Day and the children took turns pulling and ‘mushing’ each other using Matt’s racing sled.

“Children were able to use his rig and dog scooter to ride on. But, best of all, they also met, stroked and cuddled the lively but very friendly husky team that Matt uses for dog sledding in the forest.

“The Iditarod, an annual race for dog sled teams in North America, had just finished and the children found out lots about this and were able to contrast what they had learnt about how dogs were treated in the Yukon gold rush (based on reading The Call Of The Wild by Jack London) with how Matt’s team were looked after.

“While it was great fun, the purpose of Matt’s visit was to inspire and educate the children about adventure and he also delivered two hands-on assemblies about climbing.

The children will follow it up in in April with a trip to an indoor climbing centre for climbing, bouldering and caving.

“Matt was great with the children and they learned a lot from him whilst having a brilliant time. The dogs were a real success. The visit was predominantly for Dragonfly class but the whole school managed to see the dogs,” said Adrian.

One Year Five pupil said: “Matt really inspired me to climb,” while a child from Year Six said: “When the dogs came out, there was a blast of excitement.”

A friend added: “It gave me, and a lot of others, the inspiration to do things we have never thought of doing.”