Valentina Linda

«Play has been an essential part of creating the bond which Kiki and I have. I adopted Kiki when she was 18 months old and up until then she hadn’t really had any stable relationships with humans. As a result of this lack of positive experiences with people, she had simply learned to ignore them. It’s been a long, hard road to build a strong and consistent relationship with her. However, one of the things that really helped us bond was undoubtedly playing together. For Kiki this was an entirely new and unfamiliar concept, but she slowly learned how to have fun and how to trust me and my suggestions for playing together. The game that helped us the most

In honour of the launch of PIPPEN, Axaeco’s first dog toy, we want to dedicate an article to the role of play in our dogs’ lives. We talk to Roberto Guadagnini, a vet behaviourist: Play «In the natural world all mammals play. This is especially true for species which care for their young for an extended period of time and which are not under constant threat of attack from predators. The animal orders to which these characteristics most apply are carnivores (which includes wolves, the ancestor of modern dogs) and primates (such as our own species). The fact that playful activity is seen in many wild species, means that it must serve an important evolutionary role; indeed, play stimulates and develops motor activity