When Jenn and I first started developing the concept for Good Dog in a Box, we both agreed that we wanted to highlight dog safety and dog bite prevention, especially for kids. The largest segment of the population that gets bitten by dogs are 5 to 9 year olds. Many times the bites occur from family dogs or dogs the kids know.
Dog bites is the number nine reason that family dogs get surrendered to shelters. “Time and time again when I was volunteering at animal shelters I would see good dogs coming in because they had bitten someone,” said Jenn Merritt, cofounder of Good Dog in a Box. “Their families just didn’t have the tools and education resources they needed to understand what the dog was trying to tell them before a bite occurred.”
Playing the Dog Smart Card Game
From those experiences, Good Dog in a Box was born, but we were still looking for a fun way to teach dog bite prevention. Together Jenn and I came up with the Dog Smart Card Game. Jenn took 51 different images of dog body language and categorized them into three different color coded categories: green when it was safe to approach a dog, yellow when you needed to use caution approaching a dog, and red when you needed to stay away from a dog. As an ex-homeschooler, I played a lot of Montessori based card games with my children to teach everything from volcanos to space. I adapted a card game similar to what we used for Dog Smart.
Dog Smart uses traffic lights and colors to let kids easily know if a dog exhibiting different body language signs is safe. The game is designed so even non-readers can play and learn. I also designed the cards so that memory games, matching games, math games, and classic card games could all be played with them.
Watch the video below for instructions on how to play the main dog bite prevention game and a memory game. Dog Smart begins shipping next week and both Jenn and I are super excited to get it in the hands of kids and their parents. Find out more about the Dog Smart Card Game and other educational products in our shopping area. Dog Smart will also be available to wholesale Partner accounts.
Dog bite prevention doesn’t have to be scary.
Check out our recent article in on Examiner.com that highlights dog bite prevention skills for every day interactions between kids and dogs.
Download our SAFE infographic on the four ways to stay SAFE around dogs they know, along with our wall chart and kid’s ebook, plus other free SAFE resources including our new video SAFE for Dogs You Know.
Share with us how your family and friends have used and practiced SAFE. Share your pictures on our social media. We’d love to hear from you. Let’s keep kids SAFE!
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