American vaudeville performer and film comedy actor W. C. Fields is reputed to have once said ‘never work with animals or children’. This week Communication Mixdown speaks with two guests who do just that.Artist Ben Landau, specialist in creating interactive experiences and performances that deconstruct closely held social, political and cultural assumptions talks about his current project, The Children’s Party: Think Tank Sessions, and how kids can communicate complex ideas like power and co-operation.Melissa Starling calls herself the creature teacher. Co-author of a just published book entitled "Making Dogs Happy", she explains some of the ways that dogs, through a system of subtle signals, communicate with other dogs, and with humans.