2 Year Olds And Dogs…..

I prefer parents and young children to be a little scared of dogs rather than to be blasé. Over 6 years old most (but not all) children will respect a dog if they are taught to do so. And I mean taught with supervision and demonstration and experience and over a period of time not just being told something the first time the meet a dog and then expected to remember. I don't mean that families with young children/babies should never have dog but it does have to be handled carefully. I do think that in almost all cases managing a situation or lifestyle with children and dogs is NOT about protecting the child from the dog but about protecting the dog from the child. There are exceptions where a dog attacks a child with no provocation but they are thankfully few and far between.

My relatives kids and regular visiting kids have been pretty good with dogs from a very young age (since crawling :cool:) mostly because they are a bit scared as well as being taught to live with dogs. But like Tigerlily says kids under 8 NEVER look before they leap. These kids would never deliberately harm a dog but they might land on it in the middle of a crazy wall of death routine as they hurtle round the room so you can never just say "they'll be fine" and forget about them.

Kids do mangle training by wearing out certain cues particularly names and come, down, sit, drop, give, leave but that is as intrinsic a part of children as the inexhaustible "why?"
Dogcrazy and Dogster - you could maybe use the children shouting your dogs names as a training opportunity. While they are shouting YOU say your dog's name and feed your dog a treat. It might just help with your recall with distractions.

One regular visiting child at age 2 DID go through a malicious stage where it deliberately nipped Zac's ears and poked him :mad: but that stage disappeared within a few weeks. I've met the older poking-with-sticks-shoving-chairs-into-dogs kind of kids too (usually with parents who say "I think dogs make allowances for children" and do nothing to stop them O_o). I generally work on scaring and shaming the parents :whistle: but as Dogcrazy says... sometimes there is nothing you can do but RUN.
 
I would use it as a training opportunity, but Shivon's recall sucks. I can't do it at the dog park just yet, I need to get a longline first. I didn't want to call her at the dog park because I know she won't come.
The kid was also chasing after her (to make it worse), so Shivon was running away from her, 'cause she thought the kid was playing with her.:rolleyes:
I agree with Dogcrazy- sometimes, just RUN.
 
My mistake, I had assumed your dogs were leashed while other children were around so then it'd be easy just to say your dog's name and pop a treat in her mouth. Recall training is not all about distance and long lines. Recall training is not a compartment it is daily life. I've done a lot of recall training just at the length of a leash or saying the name of the dog and rewarding while it is beside me in a distracting environment. Sometimes that distracting environment is while we are both running away :D.
 
Right now we are working more on distance ( she is WAY better with distractions than distance). There are many distractions at a park anyways.:D I do practise it with her every day, like you said, while she is sitting beside me, or on a leash and at home.
 
Dogster said:
Right now we are working more on distance ( she is WAY better with distractions than distance). There are many distractions at a park anyways.:D I do practise it with her every day, like you said, while she is sitting beside me, or on a leash and at home.
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still, most kids have tons of visitors, they do. Dawg, my house was like a daycare center when my kids lived here. :ROFLMAO: always tons of visitor kids, from when they were small,
to the day they grew up and moved out....lots of visitor kids, all the time. I loved it, really.

sometimes new kids came and went, now and then, all kinds.
Occasionally an immature kid would end up amongst my kids visitors. Neighborhood kids wandered in, too.

it's not just the kids in the family, most kids do have tons of OTHER kids coming around, daily!! The kids that showed up all the time, became like extra daughters, and still are, to this day,
but wow, a lot of other kids, too. It's something to think about, is the visitor kids.
 
I would probably vote no. IMO a 2 year with a bouncy dog is a bad idea. If he was my foster i would have gone with no.

We got Oka when Lani (my daughter) was 3 1/2, Lani is a very bright kid, super bright... and she has trouble with the rules - no laying all over her, no touching when she was asleep, etc etc. It was VERY hard work. This was with a puppy that i could teach rules too, that had no guarding issues etc. Oka and Lani are fine together now, and she was fine when my nephew of 3 and newborn came for a visit.
If Oka had guarding issues or was mega bouncy i would crate her out of the way.

I can't use my kids as dog-child interaction example becuase my kids are not average kids. My nephew went through a pokey stage but Oka makes no bother. Some kids are better listeners, nice and kinder than others at all ages.

If Chance is likely to bounce on or at the kid then i would probably not rehome them together. A intelligent, bouncy, guardy dog and a 2 year old does not sound like a good combination. From one fosterer to another - i wouldn't risk it :)
 
I would also vote no.

I think I read in your earlier post that Chance jumps on kids 'because he loves them'? Jumping is not great behaviour in my opinion... even if Chance does enjoy the company of children.

I got Blade as a 10mth old when my son was about 12mths old. I was extremely lucky that they were fabulous together [and I had had another dog before Blade that my Riley grew up with to begin with - plus my Mum has a trillion dogs]. I now live with my partner and Riley is nearly 3, and Daniel's boys are 5 and nearly 7. They're great with Blade - because Blade is great with them, and we are very, very strict with everyones behaviour. Everyone respects everyone else.

I would not rehome a dog with 'guarding' issues to somewhere with small kids - I would say under 6 or 7.
 
I was observing a training class at our big-box pet store last week, a woman, her 6-8 year old son and a 4 month old yorkie. After the session the dog grabbed a stick and began chewing it. I knelt down and made a kissy noise to redirect her, no dice. She quickly turned around and was obviously early stage resource guarding. I asked the trainer for a treat, by the time I turned around to trade with the dog the little boy had picked the dog up to remove the stick from her mouth. After they left I mentioned this to the trainer, although I believe the severity of the situation was beyond his knowledge. :mad: I bet in 4 months when the puppy is unmanageable and aggressive she'll be on her one way trip to the vet. :(
 
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