Children and Dogs:

Children are only small people but frequently seem to be treated as a different species.  Even a separate category on this web site confirms this opinion.  Yet the relationship between children and dogs, as with all ‘grown-ups’, ought to be the most natural on the planet.  Children of course need to be protected from potential dangers in the world around them but, at the same time, must be enabled to learn how to deal with them.  All too often, it appears that the overriding desire to protect children from danger, denies them the very opportunity they need for this essential learning to take place.  Suggestions have recently been made, out of this obligation and desire to protect, that, owing to what must be accepted as very rare tragedies, dogs are not suitable as family pets.  But these are as ill-informed and ridiculous as suggesting that grass should not be grown because of lawn mower accidents.  We are adapted to grow grass just as we are adapted to need and live with dogs and any attempted external compulsion to do otherwise is doomed to failure.  We need to teach children how to behave with dogs in exactly the same way as we teach safety around any other potential risk or hazard, rather than simply ban the hazard. 

On the whole, children only do what they learn from others, mainly their parents and peers.  Their behaviour around dogs, and whether or not they learn appropriate ways of behaving, depends entirely on what they are taught, consciously or not.  The same applies to how children behave around matches, open fires, traffic and strangers on the street. Often what is consciously ‘taught’, which tends to happen only part of the time, is considerably undermined by what children observe, which is happening all of the time.  Instructing a child not to swear in school is of no use whatsoever if they hear the ‘f’ word continually elsewhere.  In the same vein, there is no point in telling a child not to grab a dog by the collar to get it off the sofa or shout at it or hit it for rubbish raiding, if they see Mum and Dad doing just that all the time at home.  It is the behaviour of adults and their mistakes that make lawn mowers, cars, guns and dogs ‘dangerous’.  Children merely copy them.

Education must be the key to create children, and of course the adults who care for them, who do not routinely make dogs feel like biting.  The fact that a dog is an emotional being which reacts as it sees fit to its environment is rarely understood or accounted for, both by the public and in law.  Instead, it is assumed that a dog is ‘dangerous’ or ‘aggressive’ per se in the same way as it might be black or large or conform to a certain breed standard.  There are several resources available to help combat this misconception, including the recently published Blue Dog interactive CD for three to six year olds (www.thebluedog.org) and ‘The Canine Commandments’, available from www.broadcastbooks.co.uk, an illustrated set of rules to help both children and their parents interact with dogs in a non-threatening, understanding and educational manner.

We must also address the need to create dogs who rarely feel like biting, in other words, which are very tolerant of threatening aspects of their environment and may well appear to ‘love’ everyone.  To do this, a certain realism is required about breed descriptions and what humans appear to value in terms of canine temperament traits.  Do we really need any dog which is described as ‘protective’, ‘loyal’ and ‘aloof towards strangers’ if we are serious about dog bite prevention?  Although used superficially as accolades, these adjectives may very well indicate a dog which is, in reality, so readily threatened by the world that biting anyone outside the family circle is the obvious choice from the dog’s perspective.

It is also essential to be aware that there is a distinct difference between a dog who is well-trained and one who is well-behaved and to realise exactly how much guidance any particular dog needs in order to ‘behave’ appropriately.  We must not assume that a dog will automatically know what to do, or what not to do, without guidance.  Most dog bites occur when the animal is left to make its own decision, regardless of how well-trained or ‘obedient’ it may be in other circumstances.  A dog left tied up to the school gate may know exactly what to do when its owner, with clicker, bum bag and food rewards in hand, is close by.  When left to its own devices, however, nothing can be guaranteed about its response if a strange child pats it on the head.  The irony is, from the canine point of view, that the more highly trained a dog is, the more it may have been taught to depend upon external guidance.  How many of us, for example, will know the way to go without help once we have all become dependant upon our Satnavs?  This makes the creation of tolerant and well-socialised dogs even more essential. Forget what dogs look like – it’s how they behave that really matters.

There are many ways in which children can interact safely and educationally with the dogs they either live with or come across elsewhere.  But the way we try to educate dogs has to be taken into account.  Coercive and threatening techniques, which in essence pit human strength and determination against that of a dog, are by their very nature impossible to impliment, and potentially extremely dangerous, in the hands of small humans - in other words, children.   Positive reward-based training methods, on the other hand, engage both human and dog in a mutually beneficial and enjoyable bargaining system to encourage appropriate behaviour.  In complete contrast to coercion, these methods can be carried out by anyone old enough to understand the significance of the word ‘please’.  Encouraging a child to think of a dog’s ‘sit’ position as a canine version of this ‘magic word’ and asking a dog to sit for what it wants as routinely as a child is asked to say ‘please’, is an invaluable way of giving any child over the age of five both empathy with, and control over, their canine companions.     

Children should become involved in as many of a dog’s enjoyable experiences in life as possible with all interactions being considered as opportunities for social learning for both parties.  Unfortunately, the opposite is often true, where dogs and children are deprived of each other’s company in order to prevent possible mishaps.  The dog may be shut in the utility room when friends come round to tea or put on lead when near children playing in the park in case he misbehaves.  But we must also guard against the distinct but accidental impression given to many dogs - that adults are more likely to be angry with them whenever children are around.  Quite simply, if a dog is likely to behave badly or get things wrong when associating with children, then he will learn to associate reprimand with children.  With potentially damaging consequences, children are, in turn, subconsciously taught that reprimand is the way to try to control dogs.

Instructing a child not to approach a dog while eating, is of course a sensible precaution.  But if children are involved in the presentation of food in the first place, then it becomes far less likely that the approach of a child will later be viewed as a threat.  There are very sound principles underlying the saying, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie!’ but if children are encouraged to present a food reward to a dog who is lying down calmly, then both calm lying down and the approach of children will be rewarded and made pleasurable for dogs.  A child who has been brought up in such ways to behave in a humane and understanding way towards dogs, will have a distinct advantage in all social communication over those who believe that forcing one’s will on another creature is the only way forward.  They will also be far less likely to get bitten.   

© Kendal Shepherd  January 2008