Socialising dogs with kids?

adser53

So here's a tricky one...

When you don't have kids of your own, or have any friends with kids, how do you get your dogs used to them????

As a bit of background, I'm 26, and my girlfriend and I have have our own dogs for the last 5 years and live in our own house. In keeping with modern trends, none of our friends have dogs and kids yet (except one couple who decided to ignore their dogs when the kids came along- not an option IMO).

Our dogs, from being walked so much, are great with other dogs, noisy environments etc so no probs there. However, Kai, our youngest dog who is 14 months old, has no experience with kids at all and she's quite nervous of them. It's not that she's vicious or anything, she seems to be afraid and as we all know, any scared dog may "react" to it's environment.

By sheer coincidence, we just never met any kids when we walked her so they're completly alien to her. In comparison, Loki loves kids and lets them hang out of him!

Now I'm not naive enough to leave any dog alone with any child but how do you go about "socialising" a dog with kids?

CL32

Hi Adser,

I don't know if its an option but do you have any young nieces or nephews? I'd say if you told an uncle or aunt what you were at they'd be more than happy to bring the kids over provided you gave them a slap up feed and the best wine you can afford.

A good family walk and long day in the house with a few childers would be a good start.

We mind my goddaughter the odd time and its gas watching a three year old bossing a staffie around.

EGAR

Bring her down here, my son will be happy to socialise with her under our supervision.

adser53

@CL32 unfortunately my niece & nephew live in England and the kids on my OH's side "belong" to dog unfriendly families :rolleyes:

And Sarah, I'd be embarrassed bringing any of my dogs near your crowd cos your lot are so well behaved!

EGAR

You wouldn't say that if you had met Phoebe, she is an embarassment to me as she training resistant and I have given up and work around her.

tk123

Is there a playgound you can walk by to get her used to the hustle and bustle? We're lucky because there's a playground in our park - I've always made sure we pass it on every walk so my guy (19 months) gets used to the noise, kids running by etc. We don't generally encounter kids coming up to him because most people think he's is going to suddenly savage their kids so they sheild them as we pass etc :rolleyes: When kids do come up to him he's always just sat or lay down or rolled over on his back and let them cuddle him and stayed very calm. I'm not sure if it's because he's a bit overwhelmed or if he acually knows they're "cubs" because he seems to treat them in the same way as he does young pups or very small dogs - he's very calm and gentle with them and lets them set the tone and tell him if they want to play.

mikemac

Our golden retriever heads up to the national school at certain times and just stands and watches the children. It's a bit strange
Maybe take your dog up and get her used to the noise.
He used to join in the lunchtime football games, currently serving a lifetime touchline ban.
A local playground would do for Kai too

I know you're not going to leave children unsupervised.
Just this thread reminds me of our border collie. She treats infants like her own pups!
Licking their face one minute but if they wander off crawling she'd go to nip them :eek:
Can't leave her alone with children.

LucyBliss

That actually doesn't surprise me about your border collie because they have an innate herding instinct. My grandmother's border collie used to try to send my grandmother into her bedroom if she heard a noise outside and my grandmother tried to go to a window to look. There'd be a lot of attempted nipping and noise from the dog.

I have some of the same problem with one of my dogs because there's no kids in this house. The other two usually ignore children when we're out walking but Meg will keep looking behind her because kids are noisy and chatty mostly and this makes Meg a bit bothered. And when we're in the garden and children are walking up the street, they start to bark behind the gate. But it's not an aggressive thing, it's part excited and part 'why is this creature stopping and not walking past; this looks suspicious, we must investigate by barking and bouncing around!' Last thing I want are any visiting neighbours nieces/nephews/grandkids to be traumatised by strange barking dogs and if they were on the other side of the gate, there would be no problem. The gate gives them extra security to behave that way. Luckily, most of the neighbours know the dogs quite well and are aware that they're not a threat to anyone.

adser53

Cheers eveyone for the replies. That's a good idea about walking her by a playground tk123, I'll give that a go

Its just that kids don't bother her unless they come within 3 or 4 feet of her, then she gets nervous of them .

I'm not overly concerned at the minute because we've twins on the way in a few weeks so she'll be getting used to kids one way or another. I was just hoping to try & get her to be more relaxed around kids before the madness happens

Also I was curious about how to solve this problem if it was a thing that we weren't having kids for the foreseeable future.

Thanks again folks

LucyBliss

adser, twins on the way? That's fantastic news! Congrats!

Discodog

Mine meet neighbours kids but I think that it is more about educating the kids regarding dogs. My dogs will react in a totally friendly manner towards adults, kids, dogs & other animals unless they feel threatened which they never do.

Children will meet dogs whether the family have dogs or not. Every child should be taught how to approach a dog, interact with it & understand basic communication. A scary study revealed that many children thought that a snarling dog was smiling !. Many so called attacks are where the dog misunderstands the child or the child misunderstands the dog.

My neighbours kids love to explain to their friends about how my dogs have different tail wags etc & what they mean.

tesslab

OP is there any particular toy your dog really likes that you could bring out with you? My dog was quite nervous of kids so I brought her frisbee to the park. Came across a few kids and asked would they throw the frisbee for her.
With time and patience and treats of course she has come a long way. She does tricks for her food so the kids love getting her to do a trick and then throw the treat for her.
The more they can associate good things with kids the easier it gets. Hope this helps.