A1's Learning Journal 2017: May 2017

Today we had the team from BARK (building awareness around K9s) to teach us how to be safe around dogs. Here is Jango. He was a rescue dog and was mistreated by previous owners. He has a funny sounding bark because his neck was injured from a collar.

Jango is now a healthy dog. He gets restless a bit, so when he starts getting restless it's a great opportunity to see some of his tricks!

We learnt that if a dog is on its own, leave it alone. If a dog is with it's owner you need to check with the adult looking after you if it is ok to ask to pat the dog. If it's ok with our adult we need to ask the owner of the dog. We learnt - ask if it's ok before you say gidday. You need to ask to pat a dog as they can't talk for themselves. So "check it's sweet before you meet". It's also important to ask the dog if you can pat it. We can do this by holding out our hand for them to sniff so we need to make an asking ball with our hand and put it down towards the dog's level. Jess was the lucky volunteer who got to go up and use this technique!

If you are on your own and a dog scares you by approaching you we learnt that you need to stand like a tree with your feet wide apart and look straight ahead. A dog can't chase something that isn't moving. We tested this technique by walking around the hall and when Jango barked we stood tall like a tree.