(PRESS RELEASE) The Dog Gurus, the premier coaches in staff training and business consulting group for the pet care industry, have developed a fun and effective way to ensure the knowledge of pet care staff in identifying a dog’s body language. The “What Color Am I?” game helps staff and caregivers to understand and recognize the signals being given by a dog that reflects their mood and potential behavior(s).
Dogs cannot verbally tell us with words when they are uncomfortable, so a dog’s body language is very important to be paid attention to and understood. It can indicate happiness, contentment, distress, and agitation and allows for their human companion to change or remove them from the environment before any issues can arise. The pet caregiving team should already be properly trained in order to recognize these behaviors and body language, but the “What Color Am I?” game allows for an enjoyable way to refresh their knowledge.
The “What Color Am I?” game comes in three different skill levels: an Easy Version, a Moderate Version and a Most Difficult Version. There’s also a bonus Parking Lot Version where there is overlapping of behaviors and the players get to discuss the challenges and solutions to reading the body language of dogs.
The game is based on the colors of a traffic light: red, yellow and green. Red represents body language that indicates the dog is in distress of some form. Yellow represents body language that should be seen as cautionary to the dog being in distress. Green represents body language where the dog is at ease. The Parking Lot version allows for when there are multiple behaviors that can be interpreted as “in between” the two colors.
The Easy Version has the staff pick images to put in the correct color category, and they give the explanation for why they picked the color. The Moderate Version will have three small teams each assigned one of the colors. Each of the teams will be dealt an even amount of photos and challenged with the task of collecting and displaying all the photos that represent their assigned color. The Most Difficult Version also has teams, but the teams will work in a timed race structure to complete boards with their color’s images. For all versions, point and prize reward systems can be set up for added incentive.
Dog Guru, Susan Briggs, MA, CPACO, further explains the “What Color Am I?” game here.
Advertisement
The “What Color Am I?” game can be purchased here. A sample of the “What Color Am I?” game and further instructions for the game can be downloaded here.
You can also educate your team — and your clients — with the Canine Body Language Posters. The Canine Body Language Posters are easy-to-frame posters that break down signals by level of importance. The Canine Body Language Posters can be purchased here. The posters can also be downloaded digitally as 8 ½ by 11 inch pamphlets.
