Tie A Yellow Ribbon...

...around your dog's leash?

That is what a movement out of Sweden is encouraging people to do, for their dogs who need space.  I just learned about this, and I think it is a ridiculously AWESOME idea!

There are many reasons why a dog who is out for a walk should not be approached.  The first to come to mind are that the dog is reactive, fearful, or aggressive.  Wouldn't you be happy to know that you should give those pups a wide berth?  There are other reasons as well - what about a contagious disease?  Those dogs need to get their exercise too, but don't you want to skip that greeting?  Often people are working on training their dogs, and having another dog or person come up to them can be very distracting - a yellow ribbon would allow for training to continue uninterrupted, so that we can soon have another model dog citizen in the world.

I am constantly telling clients that it is much easier to train your dog than to train the people your dog will meet.  Yellow means caution, and if we can train the general public to use caution when we put a yellow ribbon or bandana on a dogs leash?  Just. Freaking. Brilliant.

The (limited) website is: http://www.gulahund.se/default_en.asp and they have a facebook page as well: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yellowdog-Some-dogs-need-space/401739849882648 .  Friend them, tell a friend, tell all 400+ of your facebook friends, tweet about it, retweet it...you get the idea!