While I was at the Pedigree/Waltham event day we were told about a new app especially designed for children around dog safety. When I got home I downloaded it (on android from Google Play) and sat down with my almost 3 year old daughter. Macy has been brought up around dogs and gets dragged along to agility shows so I would hope she knows how to behave around dogs but being still a toddler and going through a phase of she knows best it is always good to reiterate dog safety. This app is great as it does just that but in the form of a game so the children are learning but don't realise they are!
It is basically about a little boy and a dog who steals his brother's ball, the game follows the little boy who meets various people and dogs on the way to finding the dog who stole the ball. The boy learns how to greet dogs properly, how to read their body language, not to approach sleeping dogs, dogs that are eating and take toys from dogs. It is great because the child can see what would happen if the boy did the correct thing and what would happen if the boy was to do the incorrect thing and disturb a sleeping dog for example.
Macy was brilliant, she got some right, she was great at reading their body language and how to stroke the dog. She thought it would be nice to cuddle a scared dog, which in her mind she would have a cuddle if she was frightened so it is a difficult one for her to understand but with the help of this it is more likely to sink in. Dinner was ready halfway through our game, as soon as she had finished she wanted to log back on and help the little boy find the dog and ball! The game had paused it's progress and we started off where we left off until we found the dog with the ball! At the very end the 'Guru' goes through everything learnt in the app and the child has to press the right option.
All opinions are my own and have not been influenced in any way.
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