Socializing Yukon around kids was always a big concern of mine. I don't have kids, and I'm not the type to go out of my way to find kids for Yukon to play and hang around with.

So while Yukon was young I would accept any invitation for dinner parties, family get together, birthdays etc.. where I knew kids would be running around playing. I would ask if I could bring Yukon along, him being a cute pup, he was very kindly welcomed. Unfortunately these invitations only lasted for less than a year, as I ended up moving too far away to continue.

Out on walks if a child approaches us asking to pet Yukon I would say "Sure" and then instruct him/her how to properly approach a dog. Surprisingly most of the kids in this town are very well educated about dogs. Often times these youngsters are telling me how great German Shepherds are. Bless!

I would say Yukon is 40-50% trustworthy around young kids. He will stand quiet and calm while being stroked by a child, but I would not trust him when it comes to food and kids or overly excited kids. He does tend to see fast running, screaming children as possible playmates.

I think the memory of being exposed to children as a puppy is still there for Yukon it's just buried, and as I mentioned above, I don't have the nerve/motivation to seek out young children to re-surface that memory and training.

So do you think it's an unreasonable expectation for parents to want to leave their kids and dogs together unsupervised?

I have found that most people want to do this? It seems anyway?

When Molly was a puppy (biting and generally being a terror) I would not leave stepson alone with him. When she was trustworthy (maybe 1!!!) then I felt comfortable. He is never allowed to be alone with her off property though, never holds onto her lead. Only because she is STRONG and nobody but me handles my dog.

With Cooper as he is not especially mouthy and now stepson is 10 1/2, I let them be but have to constantly remind him that no teeth are to touch skin - shove a toy in there quick!

But yesterday I was 'off duty' for an hour or so while Molly and I had some alone time on the bed (cuddles) and Brad and ss were in charge of Cooper - accident on the floor! The only one of the day

Thankfully as SS was here for holidays when we first brought Molly home she is used to kids and is great with them. Am hoping Cooper will be the same and there were two girls at the breeders.

I see that most of the folks around here with kids have that expectation, and do leave kids and dogs together.

But these are kids, not toddlers, and I think there is a distinction. Most of the kids around here that were raised around dogs seem to have the right relationship with the dogs, I've seen no problems. The problem however comes when there are kids there that haven't been raised around dogs, and also with toddlers that haven't yet been taught how to behave around dogs.

Young kids, that like to walk up to a dog, pet the dog, then turn on a dime and take off at high speed, or those that are in the face of the dogs, etc. very dangerous to leave them alone with many dogs!

We lucked out when we adopted Sean, i.e. he loves kids which made us think he must have been raised around them but he loves people in general. From the time our kids were young we always taught them how to treat an animal and supervised whenever they had friends over. Fortunately we never had a problem, in fact, Sean usually wanted to be wherever the kids were playing. I guess he was their nursemaid.

I don't have kids, or child relatives. I used to take Brennan as a pup to the edge of the drive way where the neighbourhood kids came, asked to pat her and then encouraged them to greet her. I would ask the kids to give her enough space so she didn't feel crowded, and would show the kids how to present her with a treat in an open palm. I also would walk her down past the local school at varying times, and into my Mums school- rewarding for calmness. I always encourage kids to ask for permission- that is my major rule- if they don't ask permission, they don't pat my dog. I do actively seek ways to continually socialise her to children.

I will always supervise Brennan with children- she's not a nasty dog, but she is excitable, and when she gets too excited she is at risk of jumping and could easily hurt a child in her excited state. That said, recently my neighbours kid jumped over my fence to retrieve a frisbee that had landed in my yard and Brennan had played with- although she clearly didn't mind ( I had no idea he had done it and I was inside at the time), I still went and had words to his Mum and told her what had happened and expressed how dangerous it was.