Teaching animal handling staff and volunteers to read a dog’s body language can make a huge difference in the safety of all humans and animals interactions. Learning to recognize the difference between a happy wagging tail and a warning flag-waving tail takes supervision, guidance and repetition. Andrew Marsden, the Behavior & Training Supervisor at the Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA  is doing a wonderful job educating the shelter’s volunteers with the help of a bulletin board filled with photos showing all kinds of behavior! The photos are an clearly understood visual aid, grouped into three categories for even easier comprehension and retention. This is an ongoing project for this shelter’s behavior department, and these are just a sampling of the photographs they currently have posted. We are sharing them below, so perhaps you can use them as part of your staff & volunteer animal handling safety training!

The shelter has them posted on a bulletin board across the wall of the volunteer sign-in area, where they can’t be missed. One of our Adopt-a-Pet.com staff took these photos of their photos with the labeling. A big thank you to the shelter for letting us share them with you!

ps. We will also be adding a separate blog entry with their cat body language photos very soon.

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Dog Behavior |

To learn more about Purina’s support of animal welfare organizations around the U.S., and to see if you are eligible, visit www.purinashelterchampions.com