Once a month, children and their parents head to the Salem Public Library to return some books, pick out some new ones, and see Bill. They come because of his shining eyes and his oh-so-chill attitude. But above all, they come because Bill listens to them, hanging out his tongue as they read.

“Bill’s really mellow and charismatic,” said his owner and trainer Doneva Miletta, who founded Salem’s Read to a Pet program. “He loves kids and they know that.”

Bill, 9, is a therapy dog – an animal trained to provide comfort to people dealing with hardship, especially in hospitals, retirement homes, schools and disaster areas.

The use of therapy animals has exploded in recent years as psychologists have uncovered the benefits of “Animal-Assisted Therapy.” Monkeys have found new homes as personal assistants in homes of disabled people, some blind people have begun using guide horses instead of guide dogs, and assistance parrots have helped people dealing with psychological disorders to live normal lives.

But no therapy animals have found as public and as accessible a use as the therapy dogs trained to listen to young readers read out-loud.

Using dogs to facilitate reading in the classroom began in November of 1999, when the Utah-based group Intermountain Therapy Animals introduced its first program in the Salt Lake City Library. Today, an estimated 1,300 therapy animals are helping people across the nation – adults and children – get a leg up on reading simply by lending a floppy, non-judging, listening ear.

The Salem program has been in existence for about three years and generally sees an upswing in visitors during the summer months. The last Saturday of every month, two or three therapy dogs and their trainers climb the stairs to the children’s section to wait for the eager readers.

Abigail Sanchez, 3, skips through the light-swathed children’s room at Salem Public Library and settles on the floor in the middle of a wooden carousel. She has in her hands a copy of Eve Therlet’s 1945 classic "I Wish I Were a Baby," that famous tome of toddler angst.

But the little girl, who is growing up in a Spanish and English-speaking household and whose big brother Luis has been teaching her how to read at home, has nothing to fear here. She has come to practice her skills reading to Snickers, a 4-year-old, part-terrier therapy dog who has learned to suppress his natural puppy exuberance to help teach children to read as part of the library’s “Read to a Pet” program.

“As dogs get older they kind of mellow out,” said Snickers’s owner and trainer, Becky Rogers. “Snickers is pretty spunky at home – he barks a lot. But here, he can be calm for an hour and a half.”

During that time, a dozen or more children pick books off the library’s shelves and present them to read to Snickers – whatever level their abilities, and whatever their comfort with reading out loud.

“The dogs really help the kids come out of their shells,” Rogers said.

Snickers, meanwhile, like all therapy dogs, can take a somewhat lackadaisical approach to listening, one that gets him in trouble with the kids. Rogers remembers a time when a boy reading to Snickers got mad when the pup hung his head on the ground and stared off into space as he read.

“He’s not listening!” Rogers says the boy cried.

“I told him: ‘Snickers is thinking very hard about what you are reading to him.’” Rogers says.

Clearly, you can’t teach a dog the kind of engaged listening that gets hammered into kids in school – the kind where the eyes are focused, the ears are perked up, the body is turned towards the speaker, and where the response shows that you are listening.

But therapy dogs aren’t meant to be like people – they are trained to be calm and calming, relaxed and relaxing. Therapy dogs are proof that mild indifference may be the best thing young readers need next to practice, practice, practice.

“Take a bow, Snickers!” Rogers calls as Abigail and Luis stand up and Snickers stretches his legs out in front of him. “Oh yes, good boy!”