Your Children and the Family Dog Playing Together

My kids like to play with our dog, but he gets a little too aggressive and the kids get scared.  What can I do?

We all want our kids to have a great experience with the family dog.  That is one of the “great family experiences” that follow all of us from being kids ourselves to being parents.  The trick is to balance the freedom and exuberance with safety and well-being.  We don’t want to completely hinder the play.  We also don’t want to have the kids scared whenever they see the dog.  Here are some tips that you should consider:

• If your kids are under the age of eight, there should always be an adult supervising the play activity or any activity between the kids and your family dog.
• Never “play rough” in the house.  Kids playing rough with the dog is never a good idea and we don’t want to introduce rough play and crazy canine excitement as the norm inside the house.
• Have your dog on a leash when he is playing with the kids.  This allows you to easily separate them if you feel anything is getting out of hand.
• Teach your kids not to push and poke the dog as a part of playtime.  This quickly heightens adrenaline and emulates a “tag, you’re it” environment.  Your dog will respond by nipping and jumping.  This is normally a frightening experience for the kids.
• Never play “tug-of-war”.  Your kids’ hands will get too close to your dog’s mouth.  As your dog tries to reacquire the “tug-of-war”, he might mistakenly bit your kid.  Again, this is not a good experience for your child.
• Play games like “chase the ball”.  Get four or five tennis balls and have your kids throw one out for your dog.  As he gets the first ball, throw the second and have your dog chase after the second.  Continue this process while you are picking up the discarded tennis balls and throw them.
• Hide toys and goodies around the yard and then have the kids encourage your dog (by pointing and calling him) to find them.  Praise him when he does.
• Practice obedience commands with your dog.  Have the kids call him to them with the “come” command.  Walk him on a leash in a circle around the yard.  Teach him to sit.

Tell your kids that if they ever feel afraid while playing with your family dog, stop what they are doing immediately and slowly stand up.  Stand still for about 30 seconds.  You can tell them that you want them to play like they are pretending to be a statue.  After that, slowly back up until they are away from your dog. 

During this time, you should also intervene, if you feel that it is necessary.  If your child can complete this by themselves, it will help build their confidence around dogs and minimize any potential of “fear of dogs” in the future. 

Our goal is to have a great time as a family and to instill a love of dogs in our kids.  Try some of these techniques and I am sure that you will experience some great results.  As always, please contact us if you have any questions at The Best Dog Trainers in South Florida.

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Dog Safety at Home with Workmen

I am pretty sure that my dogs will be fine when friends come over, but sometimes I am not too sure that they are “happy” when we have a plumber or electrician come to fix something.  Should I keep them out so that they can “get used” to the contractor or should I put them away?

You must remember the one thing that our dogs want more than anything else in the world.  They want to feel safe.  As their leader; their teacher; their boss; it is my top priority to make sure that they always feel safe in any situation.

Let’s first look at the situation when we have some family friends or neighbors over. These are people that I know and I have a pretty good idea how they are going to react with my dogs.  If they have been over in the past, I also have a pretty good idea how my dogs will react to them.  Are they good friends or “Oh, it’s you again”?  When I am answering the door, I am greeting them with a relaxed, safe body language.  My dogs can read this interaction and understand that I am in charge and that these “new animals” entering our house (territory) have been approved by me.  Since my guests have already met my dogs on a prior visit or understand that they are coming to a house with dogs, they are already prepared for the situation and they won’t communicate inappropriate posture in their body language.

When we have people visit, we are normally with them most of the time. Because of this, we can constantly reassure our dogs that everything is OK.  We can also demonstrate the appropriate way for our guests and dogs to meet to determine the level of interaction that would be appropriate between the two.  The bottom line is that when we have guests over, we have already (knowingly or not) prepared for the event so that our dogs will feel safe through our leadership.  Everything is fine.

Now, let’s change course and talk about having workmen or other contractors in our home.  The first thing that we should understand is that the reason we have workmen over is because something is broken.  We are already slightly stressed over that.  When we greet them at the door, we are not greeting a friend, but a stranger.  As we are trying to assess this individual, our body language communicates that we are not completely confident and that we have a little bit of a “defense mechanism” in place.  All of this puts our dogs on warning that they might need to come to our rescue.

We also have no idea if the contractor likes or is afraid of dogs.  They might have dogs, but beat them on a regular basis.  The contractor will display that aggressive/disrespectful body language to our dogs.  On the other hand, they might love dogs and our dogs might just want to play with them while they are there trying to fix our problem.  All of this adds confusion to the situation and diminishes our dogs’ focus on our leadership abilities.

With this said, we have found that it is best to put our dogs in a secure location in another part of the house when we have contractors over.  This allows us to be in control of their experience so that we can continue to show our leadership and keep them safe.  It also allows the contractors to work in peace and to get their job done as quickly as possible. 

It would be best to be with your dogs while the contractors are there.  Have them in your office with you or in the back yard playing with you.  This allows you to redirect their attention back to you if they start to become too focused on the sounds the contractors might be making.  It is your way to confirm “It’s OK, you are with me”.  Maintain your leadership and role of caregiver and you will secure your dogs’ respect, love, and obedience.  If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact us at The Best Dog Trainers in Weston.

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