New Study Cartoon Dogs May Not be Effective for Child Safety Lessons

A report of an article published in the Sept 2012 journal, Children Australia, was described in a news report in the Australian newspaper the Herald Sun.

We are attempting to get the whole article so that we can review it and share the findings, but in the meantime we thought this quote from the study author to the Herald Sun reporter was interesting:

"Cartoon dogs are mainly there to entertain children and so they dont help the children understand why dogs will react in a different way to humans in certain circumstances," Ms Nichols said

The Be a Tree program and all other materials produced by Doggone Crazy! and Doggone Safe feature photos and/or videos of real dogs.

We will post more about this article once we have had a chance to review the original report.

Link to the Herald Sun article

Full citation and link to the published article:

Advising the Alien: Investigating Young Childrens Learning of Dog Safety Messages

Sue Nichols, Kirrilly Thompson and Sarah Blunden (2012).
Children Australia, Volume 37, Issue 03, September 2012 pp 115-123
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=8658929