What We’ve Been Up to with Dogs Playing for Life

The wonderful trainers from Dogs Playing for Life™ have been showing us the many benefits of enabling the dogs in our care participate in play groups. Dogs Playing for Life™ is a training & behavior modification program for shelter dogs featuring play groups. The goal: to make shelter dogs more adoptable. How? it socializes them and that makes them more adoptable. You can learn more about them on their website, which even includes some videos that demonstrate the sorts of things that they have taught us over the past 2 days. 

Play is immensely important to dogs, who are after all pack animals – social beings like we are. And the dogs have demonstrated that the behavior they exhibit when in their kennels or on leash does not predict their ability to be around other dogs. Check out Anuk and Harley, above, who became fast friends in playgroups, something some of us never anticipated! They reminded us that all dogs are individuals. 

The result: we have learned important safe-handling techniques to facilitate safety for dogs and handlers, and we now know all of our dogs MUCH better. As for the dogs, they have gotten loads of exercise, training, and even fun, all while playing. As the manager of another shelter that now uses playgroups regularly said, “Thirty minutes in the play yard equates to a two-hour walk.” In short, this program is a win-win for all involved.

Many thanks to Dogs Playing for Life™ for coming all the way to Thomaston and to the Animal Farm Foundation for their sponsorship of this seminar!