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From the Oilette postcard set "Dogs."

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Santa Ana Register, California, July 23, 1937

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In January this year, I attended Dr. Amy Cook’s PLAY WAY seminar at Pasadena Humane Society.

The seminar was about “social play” as a tool for rehabilitating reactive/stressed/fearful dogs. “Social Play” has been defined as something different from playing with toys (tug, fetch, etc) It is literally “goofing around” with your dog in a way that they like that makes them happy. Body language responsiveness, movement and timing is everything.

Not only did we get to see some inspiring and entertaining video footage of Amy Cook playing with her dogs, some attendees had also brought their own dogs to play with, while Amy offered coaching.

It was an amazing and delightful experience and I couldn’t wait to get home to play with my 15 year old Boogie who hasn’t been interested in Tug or Fetch in over a year due to his vision loss.

The Play Way class was like learning a new language, a new vocabulary. You had to be there.

As far as I know, there is no other information out there on how to play with your dog without using toys, and until this seminar, I had no idea that dogs LAUGH. (I don’t think Boogie has ever laughed)

This infographic cannot possibly do justice to all the material covered in the Play Way seminar, which also focused on play as “therapy”. For now, I hope this is enough to pique everyone’s interest in the subject. This is another way to be mindful and respectful of our dog’s body language and of our own body language. I still have a lot to learn!

- Lili

LINKS:

Download Poster here in high-res (shareable without modifications, and with attribution)

Download for Instagram (2 square images)

Amy Cook’s online Play Way class

Doggie Language - my new forthcoming book will have more art on dog body language.