Day 1 Team Building

May 3, 2011. Today was the first day of Laws & Paws. Stacey Dow, our L&P dog trainer, taught the kids some name games and then went on to a team building activity. The mission was to get everyone through the lava field aka soccer field by stepping across stones aka towels Stacey brought. The twist:: everyone had to hold hands and if someone burned themselves in the lava they had to start over. The goal was to show the kids how to depend on each other to accomplish a goal.  As we start working with the dogs, it will become a team effort.  It reminds me of the saying "it takes a village to raise a child" or in our case to train a dog.  These kids may get frustrated when the dogs are doing their own thing, they will get grossed out when they have to pick up poo, they will laugh together and in the end they will cry together when they have to let the dogs go to their forever homes. They will learn to have patience, compassion, empathy, and respect for the dogs. By being a team and depending on each other they will also learn to have patience, compassion, empathy and respect for each other and others.

Stacey placed 4 small towels on the ground. The goal was to get everyone across the towels without touching the ground in between. Twist: they had to hold hands and if anyone stepped between the towels they hade to start over. Stacey's instructions were to think outside the box.  It took them awhile but they finally figured it out.