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Last Updated:
10/22/2024 6:59 PM | |
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CARING FOR A DOG TEACHES KIDS RESPONSIBILITY
By Pat Miller
Dogs and kids go together like peanut butter and jelly. We had dogs the entire time I was growing up, starting with Flag the beagle, then Rusty, Cinders and several other spaniel mixes, and finally a succession of rough collies, thanks to my love affair with Lassie. We weren’t the most responsible dog owners ---our dogs often roamed the neighborhood, and our females regularly had litters of mixed breed puppies. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I actually had a dog die of natural causes rather than catastrophe, but we loved and cared for them the best we knew how at the time.
I couldn’t imagine growing up without a dog. Many families today feel the same way. A big percentage of adopters from animal shelters nationwide are families with children. Dog trainers often host entire families, kids included, in their training classes. Some offer training specifically for children and we’re frequently asked which breed is the best choice to have around children. (See “Forget about breed and focus on a dog who adores children” later in this article)
Lofty goal
Parents often bring a dog into the home to teach children responsibility. This admirable motive also serves to teach empathy because children easily relate to their pets’ feelings. I’m sure that was part of my parents’ plan; they assigned the four of us kids the tasks of feeding, walking, and cleaning up after our furry siblings. It worked for me. I decided by first grade that my life’s work would involve animals.
The goal of responsibility serves children well, with several caveats. Parents must be good role models for empathy and responsibility. If they threaten to “get rid of” Buddy every time Susie neglects her pet care duties, the message is that the dog is disposable, and the family hasn’t made a lifetime commitment to this living, breathing, feeling family member. Susie can shed her responsibility by saying in a pique of childish anger, “Fine, get rid of him!” even if she doesn’t mean it.
If the parents follow through on that threat, Susie may suffer considerable guilt and grief, believing it’s her fault that Buddy’s gone. Or she may grow up with a damaged ability to fulfill responsibilities and commit to relationships, canine or otherwise. The results of that ruined human-animal bond can be in the kennels of shelters across the country.
Parents must make it clear that Buddy’s care can’t be compromised. They must step in to help, when necessary, to ensure he’s fed, exercised and groomed, and deliver appropriate consequences if the child neglects assigned duties--- perhaps a loss of privileges but not the loss of buddy. The lifelong commitment to and responsibility for the family dog ultimately rests on the shoulders of the adults in the house, not the kids.
By the same token, Mom and Dad must model humane and respectful treatment of Buddy if they want Susie to learn empathy. Positive training methods are ideal for teaching empathy, utilizing pain-free tools and techniques, and emphasizing the importance of understanding how dogs think, feel and learn. In contrast, old-fashioned methods that rely on coercion and pain administering tools such prong collars and shock devices, teach Susie that it’s OK to hurt living things, and desensitize her to Buddy’s reactions when he protests the pain.
Training Class
Good Trainers welcome appropriate-aged children in their training programs. Children 8 years and up are usually mature enough to participate in training classes, and younger children can help with Buddy’s training at home. Even a 2-year-old can learn to lift a hand to his chest as a cue for Buddy to sit politely rather than jump up. An 8-year-old can also assume primary responsibility for Buddy’s care—with supervision—while younger children can help parents and older siblings with dog care tasks.
Depending on the size, training, temperament and behavior of the dog, older children may be able to take Buddy for walks. You can use two leashes to allow younger children to help walk Buddy—you hold one leash, your child holds the other, while you make sure your leash is always shorter so you can absorb the impact if Buddy pulls.
One of the most important things you can do for your dog and children is to provide adequate supervision. Children under the age of 7 or 8 should always be supervised when interacting with Buddy, and sometimes older children, too, depending on the dog and child. An overwhelming percentage of dog-related maulings and fatalities occur with no adults present. It’s critically important to remember that any dog can bite. Period.
A child’s experiences with dogs can have a significant impact on his perspective on other living beings as he matures. It’s up to you as a parent to ensure those experiences are positive, so the child grows up loving, not fearing dogs, and learns how to be responsible for and caring toward the lives that in touches in this world. If all children learned empathy toward all living things as they grew up, what a wonderful world this could be.
Forget about focusing on breed and adopt a dog who adores children, not merely tolerates them.
I’m often asked what breed of dog I recommend for kids. My answer: none. I could recommend a Labrador retriever, a breed known for friendliness, and the family could adopt a lab who would maul their child at the first opportunity. Far more important is the nature of the individual dog and the preferences and personalities of the family members.
I tell people the dog they adopt should adore children, not merely tolerate them. A dog who adores small humans will forgive the inevitable kid stuff the child does and come back for more. A dog who thinks kids walk on water won’t think twice about the occasional poke in the side. He’ll simply wag his tail when the toddler trips and falls on top of him. The dog who simply tolerates children may be at the end of his fuse after one too many pokes and bite the next toddler who stumbles. The headline will read “ Dog Mauls Toddler,” and almost every time the article will include two quotes:
- “We don’t know how this happened—he was always good with kids!” Well, he wasn’t good with kids. If the owners had been better at reading and understanding canine body language, they would have seen the subtler signs of stress—such as the dog’s walking away—that signaled his discomfort and predicted the eventual bite.
- “The bite was unprovoked.” From the dog’s perspective, the bite is always provoked. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bitten! What we usually mean when we say “unprovoked” is that the bite seemed inappropriate from our perspective and we don’t understand why the dog bit.
It’s important to take certain qualities into consideration in addition to the “adores children” trait when adopting a dog. Toy breeds tend to be fragile and are generally not recommended for small children because they break easily. They can also become defensive and nippy when they feel threatened, which occurs easily because of their size.
At the other end of the scale, the giant breeds and those known to have strong personalities with the potential to do significant damage are often not recommended. The more the size disparity between the child and the dog, the more important it becomes that you scrupulously supervise their interactions—the potential for damage is greater.
It is also wise to consider an older dog, rather than a puppy, if you have small children crawling around. A young pup’s teeth are needle-sharp, and puppies explore everything, even tender baby skin, with their teeth. By the age of 6 months, a dog’s adult teeth have arrived, and he’s far less likely to chew on everything. Shelter and rescue groups are full of young adult dogs given up by their owners when the novelty wore off and the responsibility became too much of a burden. Consider giving one of those dogs a second chance at at lifelong, loving home.
Ban these behaviors or risk a bite: hugging, staring, teasing, chasing.
You see inappropriate kid-dog interactions all the time—on television, in advertising, in real life. Dogs in general are pretty tolerant—they put up with a lot of kid behavior I wouldn’t allow without snapping. Still, your kids will be safest if you teach them to behave appropriately around dogs. Here are six behaviors to teach our kids not to do.
- Hugging and kissing. As much as this is a loving gesture on the children’s part, many dogs don’t perceive it as such. These behaviors are often the cause of dog bites—and the kids’ faces are usually very near the dog’s mouth. Teach your kids to kiss their own hand and then pet Buddy with the “kiss”. Avoid hugging and kissing your dog yourself, at least in your child’s presence, as this will model inappropriate behavior. Your dog may tolerate your hugs but not your children’s—they may have less control over the amount of pressure they exert, and they won’t read or understand your dog’s signals to stop. If you foolishly choose to ignore this advice, your children must absolutely understand it’sneve okay to hug and kiss other dogs.
- Staring into a dog’s eyes. This is normal human behavior, especially for a child or adult who is somewhat fearful of a dog. Direct eye contact can also be a strong threat to a dog. Teach your child to look at the top of–or over—a dog’s head rather than directly at his eyes.
- Running and Screaming. Whether in fear or in play, running and screaming elicit arousal behavior in dogs, and encourage them to chase and bite. If kids want to run and scream, put the dogs away.
- Teasing, pinching, poking or blowing at the dog. Kids like to see dogs react. They need to understand these behaviors are forbidden because they annoy and hurt. Instead teach them to play fetch with Buddy so the dog directs his reactions toward a ball.
- Following and chasing. When a dog walks – and runs—away from a child, he’s saying he doesn’t want to interact with him. If the child follows, he’s pestering a dog and risks getting bitten. Teach your child to respect a dog’s choice to leave. If you have very young children, it’s a good idea to create escape routes for your dog, such as low gates he can jump over while the children can’t.
- Wrestling, straddling, riding or lying on the dog. Just because some dogs seem to tolerate these behaviors doesn’t mean they should have to. It’s sometimes a fine line between tolerate and bite. Wrestling encourages the dog to be inappropriately physical humans, while straddling, riding and lying on him can cause pain and trigger a bite.
Reprinted with permission from Tuft’s University “Your Dog” newsletter, March 2007 For more information about the newsletter, call 1-800-829-5116
Reprinted with permission of the author, Pat Miller, of Peaceable Paws Center, Hagerstown, Maryland. www.peaceablepaws.com
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