IT MAY sound like a shaggy dog story, but the people behind a new venture hope that offering a team-building and management training course with two four-legged friends will make real business sense.

Angela Watson and Mark Grainger set up Pawz4Thought last September, and the other key members of the team are Golden Retrievers Harry and Lucy. The team, from Old Basing, offer corporate training in the style of an obedience dog training event, called Leadership Unleashed.

Harry and Lucy greet clients when they arrive at Pawz4Thought’s dog-themed experiential learning activi-ties which aim to boost businesses and create happy, productive workforces.

Following a demonstration by Harry and Lucy, participants are split into teams of four – a steward, judge, handler and dog, where each role requires different levels of communication.

Each participant has the oppor-tunity to try each role and feedback is given inbetween rounds, culminat-ing in a ‘best in show’ round.

The idea stems from when Angela started competing in dog obedience sport with Harry back in 2011.

“I discovered that these competi-tions taught teamwork, leadership and communications,” explained Angela, who has been involved in corporate training and NLP training since 2007.

“More importantly, they also showed how personal skills are needed to successfully relate to dogs.

“Consequently, I realised that these are the identical requirements for successfully running a business and maintaining quality relationships through mutual trust rather than force.”

Among those who have benefited from Leadership Unleashed was Mike Peates, based in Bramley, who runs Yes You Can Events and is a partner at Chocolat Chez Moi.

He recently took part in the course held at The Wellington Arms Hotel, in Stratfield Turgis, and was imp-ressed.

“If you’re looking for a different team-building event try this – it’s highly entertaining, with a great message regarding communication,” said Mike.

The course is open to small and large businesses, including start-ups through to management teams, team leaders and executives.

“It’s also an excellent opportunity for networking in addition to gener-ating healthy business,” said Angela.

The next course is set to run at The Wellington Arms Hotel on Monday May 13.