Should your speech first go to the dogs?

Why not? After all, in the business world it’s dog-eat-dog. On May 7 at CBS News there was an article titled ‘Audience dogs’ help students reduce anxiety over public speaking and an accompanying video. It talked about the Kogod School of Business at the American University providing a canine audience for nervous speakers to use when rehearsing.    

Back on January 30, 2015 I blogged about how Seth Godin gave an incomplete solution for fear of public speaking. Here is the other part he missed. In his post he mentioned using a dog as an audience.

In another post on January 26, 2013 titled Hopping through sixty speeches: Shauna Causey’s Ignite Seattle talk I reported that:

“T. J. Walker, who wrote the best selling book T. J. Walker’s Secret to Foolproof Presentations, had coached her to put sticky notes with little faces on her wall as a way to simulate an audience when rehearsing. I’ve also seen suggestions to use stuffed animals, or even pets. (Our cats both get disgusted and leave the room whenever I try to lecture to them).”

The listening dog image was extracted from the famous ad for His Master’s Voice at Wikimedia Commons.