Goa: Kindness, love and care program educates children, youth to co-exist with canine friends

Margo: To prevent incidents of children being bitten by dogs, a collaborative team of dog behavior experts has started conducting interactive workshops in schools and colleges to educate people on how to co-exist with ‘man’s best friends’ Which unfortunately has been getting quite a bad reputation in Goa lately. Supported by veterinarians and animal welfare activists, Give Goa Dogs’ (GGD) ‘Kindness, Love and Care Education Programme’ was conducted for the first time for a group of eight-year-old children at St. Joseph’s Institute, Vasco. Trained professionals helping run the workshop are Mastan, a giant Rottweiler, and Ruby, a Mudhol Hound. “They are trained therapy dogs and are very good at what they do,” says Shivani Mathur of GGD, who along with dog behaviorist and trainer Shawn Moitra, who runs DogSpeed in Vasco, aims to reduce human-dog conflict through education. Let’s hope. Training. “We started with small groups of students, and kept the sessions very simple and fun, teaching children the basics of interacting with dogs. Many children were extremely scared, there was even one child who was crying out of fear at the beginning of the workshop – and by the end of it, he had gained enough confidence to pat Mastan,” recalls Shivani. She says the people employed at both adult dog sessions are trained, and such workshops should not be attempted by anyone other than professionals. Shawn says that too often, children and even adults fail to get the dog’s consent before approaching or touching it. “Every dog is different – it has a different personality, its own likes and dislikes. Shivani says, “Children need to be educated from a young age to get rid of their fear of dogs, but they should also be taught that dogs are not toys, you cannot go straight and touch them.”