The Loyal Canine: Best Friends Adoption Center Safe Handling & Staff Education Workshop
July 25, 2014 – Safe Handling & Staff Education Workshop
I had the amazing opportunity to be invited to the Best Friends Animal Society’s Sugar House Adoption Center, to present a workshop and teach their Staff about Safe Handling and Canine Education.
This was such an amazing class and great group of people and dogs alike!
The importance of proper handling of shelter and rescue dogs is not new in the dog world. What we don’t usually discuss is how these important people can kick start training in these dogs lives, improving the chances that they stay in their new homes. Simple leash techniques using gentle pressure and release, as well as energy and body language, will teach these dogs how to maintain calm, in an already over stimulating environment. In this scenario they use Halti’s and Slip Leads the most, going over the correct ways to use these tools really benefited the dogs and handlers relationships, you could see the respect and trust building happen quickly.
Beaing able to teach how to do proper dog to dog and dog to people evaluations was a lot of fun, and is one of the most important techniques a shelter or rescue worker can learn. Not to judge too quickly and giving the dogs the opportunities to make the right decisions is necessary to place dogs in appropriate homes. Also working on body language, and what dogs are really saying to each other, sometimes a growl is just a dog saying, “Hey! slow down, your making me uncomfortable”, which we had a great demonstration with these two dogs. In most cases they would have been labeled as not a good match, when in actuality they were just fine, but needed a slower introduction. These students were able to get hands on experience with multiple sizes, ages, temperaments and breeds to work with.
We went over how to de-stress the kennel environment, as well as the importance of giving the dogs some rest time. I am an avid user of Young Living essential oils and suggest many of those for stress and to promote relaxation as an aid. Also implimenting using de-stressors like nylabones and marrow bones, instead of the over exciting squeaky toys and balls, that can cause bad reactions out of already over adrenalized dogs.
It was so great to see the reactions of the students when they were reading energies and body language, including their own!
My main goal was to get the staff on the same page as the fosters who foster most of these dogs. Talking and working with many fosters, we had figured out that they were quite frustrated, feeling their training at home was hampered by the craziness of dogs going back into the adoption center, making it harder to see progress with some more of the difficult behaviors. Thus the reason not only did I teach the staff how to handle and work with the dogs, The following day I taught a “How To Be a Successful Foster” workshop! More on that later, Now everyone has the tools and knowledge to help these dogs progress not only in their foster homes, or the adoption center, but the new owners will see these efforts and be more willing to work with the dogs as well! What a great way to get them adopted into actual forever homes!
This was a workshop that went into the ins and outs of dog behavior and proper handling. If you work with a Shelter or Rescue, and think that something like this would benefit, contact me now! Lets get it set up so that we can help save many more lives! (801) 930-0627
Links for Information about Best Friends and what they do for our community and how to Adopt from them! Adopt Don’t Shop!
http://bestfriends.org/what-we-do/local-programs/best-friends-utah/
http://bestfriends.org/News-And-Features/News/New-digs-for-Best-Friends-Animal-Society%E2%80%93Utah/
http://bestfriends.org/Adopt-a-Pet/Sanctuary-Animals/
