One misconception of the SPA approach to playgroup is that dogs need prior training to be involved, or that they need to be ‘easy’ dogs.
In actuality, it is the people running playgroups who need to be highly trained. Dogs involved in playgroup can be of a variety of (social) skill levels, from inexperienced adolescents to charismatic seniors. They can have an expansive training history or none. They simply need to show interest in engaging with the other dogs, and be handleable by the staff or volunteers running the playgroup.
SPA considers playgroup to be one strategy among many when building out a shelter-wide enrichment program. For playgroup to be considered enrichment, it must increase opportunities to perform species-typical behavior (such as the constellation of behaviors that fall under conspecific play and communication) and it must yield a measurable, positive impact on each animal’s welfare (Markowitz, 1978; Shepherdson, 1998). Therefore, taking ‘difficult’ dogs who are using aggression to create distance from other dogs and putting them in playgroup is not enrichment. Allowing aggression to continue does not foster measurable, positive impacts on welfare. Such dogs don’t need playgroup.
SPA teaches a variety of other enrichment strategies you can use for ‘difficult’ dogs, some of which safely involve conspecifics to meet social needs without forcing them into direct contact.
You might be asking, “what do you mean, ‘dogs need no prior training to playgroup’?” Well, since we utilize food in playgroup, and actively focus on individual dogs, we can accomplish much of the ‘training’ during initial greetings. Is it best to work with a dog prior to introducing them to another dog? Yes. You’ll get a better baseline of how they feel about people, introduce them to an enrichment yard, get some groundwork on taking reinforcement from handler, etc. It’ll also give you a better baseline of how their behavior changes when introducing a dog to that earlier equation. Is the stress they are displaying environmental, conspecific-based, or people-based? It is much easier to differentiate when only introducing one variable at a time. That being said, it’s not always feasible and not always necessary. Due to our slower introduction strategies (protected contact greetings) and utilizing food we can build skills such as recalls, Look At That (McDevitt, 2007), hand targets, eye contact, etc., all while also gauging their interest in the other dog. If they are too stressed to engage then we know playgroup is not the right fit (yet) but may be a good fit in the future.
Humans need advanced skills to be able to run SPA-style playgroups. It is easy to wade through a group of dogs while yelling and punishing behavior. Ask the local college kid working in the dog daycare as their first job. It takes significantly more skills to be able to accurately read body language, interpret body language, make snap decisions to assist in conspecific communication, and perform positive reinforcement-based behavior modification strategies with a high level of competency. This is why SPA's focus is on education. Through our flagship program -- CORE Hybrid -- we invest our time with a shelter's staff and volunteers in building fluency with assessing canine behavior and body language, handling dogs with low-stress techniques, and working as a team for the shared purpose of improving the animals' welfare in care. The dogs don’t need training, the people do. Even if you think you’re exceptional in your skill base, there is always room for growth. Even if you’ve heard the information before, with new context and experience on board, that information can move from theoretical to practical and applicable.
References:
Markowitz, H. (1978). Engineering environments for behavioral opportunities in the zoo. The Behavior Analyst, 1(1), 34–47. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03392371
McDevitt, L. (2007). Control Unleashed: Creating a Focused and Confident Dog. Clean Run Productions.
Shepherdson, D.J. (1998) Second Nature: Environmental Enrichment for Captive Animals. Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington, DC, USA
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