I kind of have two things rolling around in my mind so lets hope I can tie them together for this topic.

First thing I’m thinking about is that most kids started back to school today up here in Minnesota. This means that there will be kids walking & biking to and from school or walking to the bus stop. The second thing is that I’m sick of hearing about a dog mauling/attacking a child.

So I thought this might be a good weekly discussion. Can we talk about kids and dogs? How do we teach our kids or teach our dogs to be safe around each other? What do we all do to help prevent a bad situation for our kids & dogs.

(For those of you who don't have kids - do you do anything to make sure your dog is safe around kids? What would that be?)

Since I have no children. I know which one or ones of my dogs are fine with kids and who isn't. The fine with kids are allowed to play with any visiting kids, the not fine with kids it depends what the problem is. Cheyenne is a very kind dog, but there is nothing soft or female about her unless you are a puppy or a kitten. She is just a bit too rough with kids, Raya is a resource guarder so not the one I would want to be around kids. Lakota has the best temperament around kids, he is very watchful and throttles back his speed and is always on the look out for a running child. My dogs are all good on leash and will tolerate kids running up on the except Raya because I am her resource she guards.

I wrote an article on how to stay safer around dogs and do talk about the biking and running etc. If you'd like to read it, it's here:

http://www.rileysplace.org/388/understanding-dog-bite-behavior-or-dont-blame-the-dog-when-it-bites/

Thanks Deb for the article, I'll try to read it later.

I can actually find a lot of articles online about this but was hoping to get a discussion going about it. Sometimes there is great advice shared between us all when we share our first hand experiences and things we've learned.

I don't have kids either, Lots of nephews tho (good guinea pig material for puppies LOL).

My previous dogs, now passed, never really had a problem with kids , bikes, rollerblades, stuff like that, kids coming over.

The dogs I have now, the 2 aussies and Masi (gsd),..the aussies are fine with kids, not real big slobbering all over you types, tolerate them well.

Masi is ok with kids that are taller than eye level, seems the eye level and smaller just aren't for her..She just seems uncomfortable with them, so I really don't allow any interaction with kids she is unfamiliar with at all just to be on the safe side.

Rollerblading, bikes, when she was very young, probably not really having encountered them, she would bark and lunge at them. sooooo to get her used to those two things,,first allowed her to check them out minus the kids, then had her watch kids rollerblading, smacking the blades, that type of thing, rode around her,,kept upping the ante..She's fine with those things now, they don't hold any interest for her.

We got Ember as an adult through a rescue, and our top priority when looking for a dog was one who was good with kids.

On the kids' end, we teach them not to be rough with her, or hug her. We told them dogs don't like hugs the way people do. Since they're kinda young, their faces are right on her level, so we are very careful with this. Even though Ember is not into guarding her food, they are also not allowed to bother her when she's eating or chewing a bone. They are also not really allowed to play ball with her because she kinda loses her mind when a tennis ball appears...

On Ember's end, we have taught her not to take food from them. She licked a cheese stick my youngest had the other day, but I can't ever remember her taking a piece of food from them. When we first got her, we just made it clear that if they have food in their hands, she has to stay away. We also had to work with her a lot at first NOT to snatch toys out of people's hands. She did it to adults too, but it was more dangerous with the kids. She gets really excited as I said when toys are around, so we had to teach her NEVER to take them out of our hands. Saved us all a few fingers...

That's pretty much it. She LOVES my kids, they are her favorite people. Just this afternoon my youngest was involving her in his playing and she didn't bat an eye. Bikes, strollers, noise, etc don'tbother her at all.

I forgot to mention that we also make sure she complies with the kids when they give a command. She is required to listen to them the same way she listens to us.

Cujo was two when my sister got her kids, they were ten months and twelve months.

She lives 1 1/4 hour from my parents' who own Cujo.

One of her girls had a dog in her foster home, that she did not like according to her foster mom. The dog was pretty much outside, I gather and had no real access to the baby.

Cujo is big and loud and intimidating, and frankly the children scared him as much as he scared them. Also, my mother is main resource. The first visit was scary. I was making it worse by hanging onto the dog or calling him away. I was on edge the entire time.

They put up a pet yard in the living room, for the girls, not Cujo. Elena liked the quiet old dog, but did not like Cujo. But analisa liked Cujo.

Elena would try to be brave, Cujo knocked her down at least once and held her there with his paw. Still, Mom was determined that the dog would not be crated while the girls were over.

The girls outgrew the pet yard. Cujo became more careful with them, they became braver. Analisa walks around with her hand on his butt. Elena likes him now too. They will be five soon. They taught him how to be around little ones. He has been stellar around Andrea -- my other sister's baby who is now 18 months old. No pet yard for her. She did not put up with that for a second. She pushes Cujo around. (I think he lets her.)

Cujo is not thrilled when the little attention grabbers get close to his special resource-people Mom and I, but he seems to realize that they are only here temporarily and they must be endured.

He is a great baby-dog now.

If you have dogs from puppyhood, socializing them to kids appropriately is great. Making it an enjoyable, rewarding experience for the dog helps.

If you get the dogs older, then it's the same thing, you just need to be safer about it. That may involve something like systematic desensitization and there may be a point where you realize, hey, this dog is never going to totally dig kids. That's where body blocking and being firm with parents and children comes in. I have found that "she's shy" "she's afraid of you!" goes a lot farther with both than any other thing I have said or done. Kids seem to get that.

I firmly believe kids and dogs need to be supervised for the safety and benefit of both. I think people allow their kids liberties with dogs because they think the dog likes it, and I think there are dogs who do, but I also think that there are dogs who tolerate it, and probably cannot wait for that kid to grow up or for school to start, etc. That we need to be aware of age and illness in the dogs, and crate and rotate as that happens. Just like we need to be aware of cranky, tired, sick in kids.

I just read a study that said the bite prevention stuff we teach kids is important, but most/more important is parental supervision. I would imagine parental supervision by someone dog savvy would reduce bites further.

With Oz, he is never out front without a leash and in the back our gate latch is so high, I can barely get it, so we know he's somewhat safe there. We have kids all around us, he seems fine when they are outside in their yards and everybody here is really good about asking if a ball goes over a fence or whatnot. On walks most kids are good about asking to pet him, and he sits and lets them. At the park if I'm alone, he's tied off to a bench, or if dh is with us he's alternated between us.
When we brought home the baby we kept them pretty far apart. Maybe it was a mistake, but I didn't want to have a disaster. Oz did try to give the baby his Cuz when she first came home. We had a bit of an issue with toys, now we take away Oz's toys from the baby and he's learned the baby's aren't his. Except her first teething ring, Oz had a "toy" lost under the couch, laying beside the couch, sighing, whining, dh looks under the couch, pulled out the teething ring, handed to me, I stuck it in the dishwasher and now it stays in the play pen. I keep them separated by gates and obstacles, except in the basement, but Oz will just move if she gets close, or we grab her. It's gotten alot better, crying happens seldom, if she falls or wakes up and we aren't there and Oz is learning the high pitched noises are happy noises. He will let her pet him and she feeds him from her high chair. In case anyone wondered, dogs DO like Baby Mum-mums. Most interesting, he has started sleeping on the bed, when she is there with us. He hadn't done that for a long time! When we'd have her in her swings or bouncy chairs, Oz could alert us to a dirty diaper, my daughter doesn't cry if she's dirty. He goes on walks with us, he's still included in everything and it seems to be getting better. I think he's seeing her as a little human. She occasionally will say "Hi" when you say it to her, but she sees Oz or a dog similar, all you hear is "Ollie, blah, bah, da" So her first word will probably be Ozzy, it could be Ollie, if Oz would consent to us changing his name When we went to the pet show the other day there was a black Great Dane in a princess dress (owner and pet dressed alike) I keep telling Oz if he misbehaves I'll let Jess put him in a princess dress and take him to the fair. He has no clue what I'm saying, but does give me a dirty look regardless!