LS-Magazine-Issue 12 Lively Pers Set

A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive/cute appearances, intelligence, and relatable personalities, but some pets may be taken in on an altruistic basis (such as a stray animal) and accepted by the owner regardless of these characteristics.

A 2007 survey by the University of Bristol found that 26% of UK households owned cats and 31% owned dogs, estimating total domestic populations of approximately 10.3 million cats and 10.5 million dogs in 2006.[7] The survey also found that 47.2% of households with a cat had at least one person educated to degree level, compared with 38.4% of homes with dogs.[8]

Pets might have the ability to stimulate their caregivers, in particular the elderly, giving people someone to take care of, someone to exercise with, and someone to help them heal from a physically or psychologically troubled past.[24][27][28] Animal company can also help people to preserve acceptable levels of happiness despite the presence of mood symptoms like anxiety or depression.[29] Having a pet may also help people achieve health goals, such as lowered blood pressure, or mental goals, such as decreased stress.[30][31][32][33][34][35] There is evidence that having a pet can help a person lead a longer, healthier life. In a 1986 study of 92 people hospitalized for coronary ailments, within a year, 11 of the 29 patients without pets had died, compared to only 3 of the 52 patients who had pets.[28] Having pet(s) was shown to significantly reduce triglycerides, and thus heart disease risk, in the elderly.[36] A study by the National Institute of Health found that people who owned dogs were less likely to die as a result of a heart attack than those who did not own one.[37] There is some evidence that pets may have a therapeutic effect in dementia cases.[38] Other studies have shown that for the elderly, good health may be a requirement for having a pet, and not a result.[39] Dogs trained to be guide dogs can help people with vision impairment. Dogs trained in the field of Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) can also benefit people with other disabilities.[24][40]

Pets have commonly been considered private property, owned by individual persons. However, many legal protections have existed (historically and today) with the intention of safeguarding pets' (and other animals') well-being.[48][49][50][51] Since the year 2000, a small but increasing number of jurisdictions in North America have enacted laws redefining pet's owners as guardians. Intentions have been characterized as simply changing attitudes and perceptions (but not legal consequences) to working toward legal personhood for pets themselves. Some veterinarians and breeders have opposed these moves. The question of pets' legal status can arise with concern to purchase or adoption, custody, divorce, estate and inheritance, injury, damage, and veterinary malpractice.[52][53][54][55]

States, cities, and towns in Western countries commonly enact local ordinances to limit the number or kind of pets a person may keep personally or for business purposes. Prohibited pets may be specific to certain breeds (such as pit bulls or Rottweilers), they may apply to general categories of animals (such as livestock, exotic animals, wild animals, and canid or felid hybrids), or they may simply be based on the animal's size. Additional or different maintenance rules and regulations may also apply. Condominium associations and owners of rental properties also commonly limit or forbid tenants' keeping of pets.[citation needed]

The job of training managers and trainers on how to run team-building sessions is different to running a team-building session per se. It's important that delegates experience the effect of different types of team building, and also the effect of the many variables which might apply (team numbers, mix, location etc); different types of games and exercises and their purpose (games, quizzes, competitions, warm-ups, exercises, workshops, etc), and the theory surrounding team building and designing team building activities (personality and psychometrics; leadership; communications; planning and preparation; follow-up; stress, fun and physical activity; etc).

With a full day or more it's very useful to include something on personality types and how this affects teams, style of management required, learning styles (eg Kolb , VAK , etc). If you use psychometrics in your organization, if possible expose delegates to the testing and theory - it's interesting and a great basis for absorbing the issues. It also adds a bit of hard theory to the inevitable other soft content.

(Next of course you'll need to appoint a flower monitor, which every right-minded person will want to be, so you can have one per floor, or one per day of the week, or one per department, whatever...)

Instruct delegates to (individually) consider and describe the personality of a well known admired person (which you can suggest, or assist the group in deciding who to describe). The descriptions must be very concise and ideally according to a personality theory that the delegates all know (or which can be explained to the group quickly and easily). Ask delegates to reveal their descriptions, record/share them visibly, and then discuss/review the differences between the delegates' views. A common cause of differences between delegates' views - and a fascinating aspect of the exercise - is that delegates' descriptions of a greatly admired person commonly match their own self-image. This is obviously a useful realization for anyone whose work entails assessing/evaluating other people, for example in management, interviewing and selection, etc.

Select a well known admired person. Involve the group in this if you wish (but avoid being distracted by other discussions about the selection, unless you welcome such discussion). You may select more than one well known person to repeat the exercise, but of course the point of the exercise is for the group to describe the same person at one time.

If the group has expertise in personality theories and psychometric systems, then for extra focus on the technical aspects of personality theories you may select more than one theory for delegates to work with (which means delegates give more than one view - i.e., a view for each theory).

If working with young people or others who have no appreciation of personality theory then begin the activity by helping the group to establish and agree 10-15 key describing words of personality, which can then be used for the exercise. If using this method do not disclose/agree the famous person before establishing the 10-15 key describing words of personality, or the choice of person will influence the choice of words.

Encourage delegates to use only 2-4 words to describe the dominant features of the personality. (Ideally for delegates who understand a psychometric system they can use the personality code/terminology of the system concerned.)

Emotions and feelings within each of us are 'triggered' in different ways. We think differently and therefore see things differently. We often do not imagine that other people may see something quite differently to how we see the 'same' thing. Management and relationships, in work and outside of work too, depend heavily on our being able to understand the other person's view, and what causes it to be different to our own.

Note: If anyone sees all the days as the same colour, or sees no colour association at all, or perhaps sees or senses a more powerful alternative association, then this is another equally worthy personal viewpoint and difference.

Versions of the 'Iceberg' may be mapped according to different perspectives, for example - how people see it currently; how they'd prefer it to be; from a personal, departmental or workforce standpoints.

As facilitator you need just a tape measure and a pad of small sticky notes. You can change the scale targets (in scale or metric/imperial) according to your situation. You can treat the activities as a competition by awarding scores, and/or run the activity for teams, which adds an interesting extra perspective.

To simplify and speed up the activities, and to reduce preparations and measuring, have people guess weight/volume/height/distance/etc of a pre-prepared example (for each exercise), rather than have each person produce their own, for example:

Each person must find a news story in the newspaper to which he/she can apply a motivational theory, by way of interpreting the story and being able to explain the story in terms of the chosen theory.

Agree review/feedback expectations with the group before the activity , as appropriate for your situation. Note that review/feedback are not always necessary, especially if the activity seeks to help people to think about personal priorities and plans which they may prefer to keep private. In this situation it is particularly helpful to clarify that people do not need to reveal or discuss their aims with the group unless they want to, since for some people this enables more relaxed and creative thinking.

The After Eight Game - (as featured on a TV advert) the winner is the first person who can move an After Eight mint chocolate from forehead into mouth using only head/face movements.

Orange Game - split the team into teams of at least five people in each and arrange boy-girl-boy-girl-etc. Issue each with an orange (or potato or other similar sized fruit or vegetable). The winning team is the first to pass the orange from person to person and back to the beginning by holding the orange between chin and chest (no hands). Dropping the orange incurs a two-person-stage penalty (move it back two people in the chain).

To extend the activity you can add the requirement that teams must indicate where training or preparation needs are most likely required for any of the process elements. Similar instruction can be given to indicate or comment on obvious needs for knowledge, experience, skills, which can be related to VAK learning styles and/or Bloom's Taxonomy perspectives. 2b1af7f3a8