Have you ever heard about the Yellow Dog Project?
No? - Here’s a quick summary of the whole concept.
The main idea is to make communication between dogs and dog owners safer, more respectful and ecological.
If your dog is fearful, anxious, not friendly to other dogs or people, going through healing process after some health issues or you simply prefer that other dogs would not approach your dog - you need to put a yellow ribbon to your dog's collar, leash or harness. It will be a polite signal to other dog owners to give you some space and bypass.
Such a simple thing but quite genius actually!
The Yellow Dog Project was originally launched in 2012 and now it’s quite popular around the world.
And now when you have the idea about the whole concept - keep that in mind, ‘cause here’s the time for us to tell you a story from our life.
BioIntellect Leashes is a small dog gear brand from Ukraine. All our team and manufacture based here along with our own dogs and families.
Autumn/winter 2022/2023 was not the easiest time for us for many reasons but one of them is blackouts.
After permanent massive missile attacks the energy infrastructure of the entire country was severely damaged. As a result there were regular emergency and planned power outages in the cities. And 90% of street lighting were off since October 2022.
It was very tricky to walk our dogs in the evening in total darkness. Of course almost everybody used all kinds of flashlights and lightning devices. But still sometimes somebody didn't see each other, two unfriendly dogs met and conflicts have happened.
At some point LED-collars and lights for dogs have become a real salvation.
At our small local dog community where pretty much everybody knows each other we started to recognise each other by the colour of the collar. Soon everybody knew that if you see two green collars together in the dark - you about to meet two schnauzers Eddie and Ricky; green and red collars together- two dachshunds Dory and Amy are approaching; blue collar is baby cane corso Nate and so on.
It became much easier to navigate during the walks in the dark and avoid some unwanted encounters.
But we moved further and decided to create some kind of Dogs Traffic Light project at our small local dog community.
The idea was to put on your dog a LED-collar or light:
Green (if your dog is absolutely friendly)
Orange or yellow (if your dog is selectively friendly and it's best to bypass it if possible)
Red (for unfriendly, reactive dogs and dogs who should not be approached by other dogs to avoid conflict).
We asked every local dog owners to share this idea as far as possible and in few weeks our streets were illuminated with Dogs Traffic Lights.
You have no idea how much easier it made our evening walks.
Such a simple act of respect to each other, supporting each other in difficult times. And in the end it made everybody's life easier.
The lighting returned to our streets in mid-February. Now we can see each other from afar without flashlights. But a lot of owners still use their "traffic lights" and they are still pretty helpful.
We believe that this experience may be helpful for other dog owners communities around the world. So we share this idea of "Dogs Traffic Lights" with you. You may implement it at your local dog community to make your evening walks safer and more comforable.
Let us know in the comments what you think about this idea.
Walk safe!
Walk fun.
Take care.
-BioIntellect Leashes.
With love and light from Ukraine 
