Teach Your Children How to Behave Around Dogs

Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 10:31 am

Whether we are talking about your own dogs or any dogs that your children may happen to meet, be sure to teach your kids some basic principles of how to behave around dogs. Doing this will make it much less likely that they will suffer a dog bite. No matter what ages your children are, you can teach something in a way appropriate for their level of understanding.

Children may think that they can hug any dog. After all, many dogs are so fluffy and cute! But as you know – even if your children may not – that some dogs really dislike being hugged. Young puppies who may accept being held gently may respond with a nip if a child tries too wild or strong a hug.

Being noisy and unpredictable are natural qualities of children, specially when they get into lively playtimes. This isn’t necessarily the easiest time for your child to be attentive to what you are saying, but they do need to learn that some dogs get frightened or annoyed by their rompings. You may have more success in talking with your child about this at a different time of day.

Teach your children to let sleeping dogs lie. If a child startles a dog awake, it may react without meaning to cause any harm. By the same token, never let children annoy dogs who are eating.

Now, here is a place where the training can go both ways, because it’s also a good idea to train a dog to allow people to be around its food bowl or to come up to eat while it is gnawing on a bone. Teach this first without children present, and begin by adding some food to your dog’s dish. But back to the topic of this article, training children!

Be sure to go over with your children how to act with unfamiliar dogs, specially that they should ask permission before petting or approaching the dog. Also teach them that if a dog does rush at them in a way that scare them, they should stand still, with their arms held in, rather than flailing around and screeching.

If you take your dog to training classes, and if the child is old enough, this is an enjoyable way for kids to interact with dogs, and for everyone to learn something. For home use, there is a nice straightforward set of online videos featuring a young woman dog trainer, Dove Cresswell, that you might want to try. Here’s a screenshot from the series. Clicking on it will take you to that website.

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!

http://puppyandpaws.blogspot.com Grace

I had to take a moment and leave a comment on your post because it was very informative. It is beneficial to read a post from someone that a person can understand. Teaching kids how to be around dogs and puppies is very important. Too many things can happen and usually the dog gets the blame.

Grace’s last blog post..Choosing A New Puppy For Your Home
http://glucosaminefordogsonline.com/ Karen

I just wanted to thank you for addressing the subject of training children to be around dogs. I have found many other dog sites and very little about this important subject.
And it is vitally important that everyone, including people that don’t own dogs, teach their children the proper way to interact with dogs, especially those they don’t know.
Thank you for the reference to the training videos.
I am going to read the rest of your post about dogs and children!
Wonderful site!
michaelwombacher

I agree with the other comments below – there is simply not enough information out about the right relationship between dogs and children. I am a professional trainer in the SF Bay Area and an area of interest that I have had for years concerns the preparation of a dog for the arrival of a baby to the family. This topic is even more dramatically under-addressed and in even greater need for discussion.

Perhaps the single most important piece of advice in this regard concerns being sure not to set up a competitive or jealous dynamic between the dog and the new baby. In order to avoid doing so it's important, if someone finds out they're pregnant, to think about all the changes that the arrival of the child will mean for their dog and implement those changes long before the baby arrives so that the dog cannot associate the changes with the arrival of the baby.

Crashing out the door, jumping up on us, leash pulling, lying around all over the furniture and being pushy and demanding might all be things we put up with if it's just us and the dog, but with a baby on the scene all of these behaviors will become seriously problematic. Trying to deal with them then is not only difficult given that we'll be busy with baby, it will also demonstrate to the dog that the baby on the scene was the beginning of when you got upset with him for what he thinks are “normal” behaviors. So deal with all of that now!

With all that dealt with there are a great many things that we can do to prepare even shy and fearful dogs for the arrival of the baby. Climbing on him and teaching him to be tolerant of all manner of handling, even if it's slightly inappropriate, is very important and relatively easy to do with a nice, gentle attitude and a few treats consistently applied over some time. Teaching him to distinguish between baby toys and child toys is important for obvious reasons. The list goes on. And the point is that by thinking these things through and acting on them long before your baby arrives you can ensure a smooth transition to siblinghood for your beloved pet.