Tips for Keeping Your Playgroups Safe & Fun
Does your team do a good job of keeping your playgroups safe and fun? How do you build the best playgroups? Can your team easily determine what dogs should play together? Do you base your playgroups on more than just size? How do you know the key components of a great playgroup? Do you know the difference between groups set up for full day daycare versus enrichment?
Dog daycare was created as a service for social dogs to be able to play together. A trend we’ve noted over time is that fewer dogs in playgroups actually play and enjoy their day. The reasons vary so we wanted to share some reminders of the basics that will help you keep your playgroups fun and safe.
It’s important to revisit best practices that are proven by the industry to increase safety:
- Separate dogs by size and by playstyle! That will help your groups run a lot more smoothly.
- Space is your friend in daycare. 75-100 sq/ft per dog is an industry standard for daycare. As low as 40sqft per dog for small dogs.
- Staff per dog ratio: 1-15 is a good benchmark but it will depend on the size of the dogs and the experience of the staff.
The two most important systems to ensure safety of all the dogs is your dog evaluation process. This ensures you are accepting dogs that are appropriate to participate in group play. The other is your staff training program. At a minimum daycare counselors need to understand canine body language, dog leadership skills and play group management.
While managing groups it is important for all leaders to be active and keep energy or arousal low. This is key to safety as arousal and aggression are linked. Be sure to watch our video where Robin explains this in more detail.
We also share tips on adding enrichment daycare options to your services. These can be a great solution for “problem” dogs that are challenging to manage in playgroups. We hope you enjoy our chat on getting back to the basics to keep playgroups safe and fun for the dogs in your care.
