Develop The Seven Habits of Strong Relationship Between Your Child and Dog

Children and dogs, just like peanut butter and jelly sandwich, can’t go very wrong when they are put together. They are ideal playmates for one another. Well, the same also holds true, they both are capable of giving parents a living nightmare when we failed to nurture a strong, loving relationship between our children and dogs.

Puppies, as well as dogs, are like kids in many ways. They need constant care, supervision, and a lot of affection. Having both your kids and dog in the same household, especially in the same room, require extra supervision and patience. The key is to teach your child how to interact with the puppy and for the puppy to understand that he needs to listen to the child the same way he listens to you.

The Seven Habits of Strong Relationship Between Your Child and Dog

1. Approach with care. Young children, especially boys, are more active and rambunctious. Dogs can get overly excited by these movements. Remind your child to walk in calm, controlled, relaxed movement when near or approaching the dog. At the same time, train the dog to behave appropriately when the children are in high geared. Kids will be kids and dogs will be dogs, what you need are ample trainings, consistency, and perseverance. It sounds like a handful but it’s all worth it. It is a very good habit to cultivate especially when you intent to throw parties for them in future.

2. Avoid Carrying. Do not allow children, especially very young ones, to pick up or carry the dog regardless of the size or age of the dog. Although puppies are not as delicate as infants are, they still have to be treated with gentleness and respect. Most children do not know how to pick up a puppy and they might cause injury to the puppy unknowingly. When puppies sense any discomfort, they will wiggle out of your child’s arms. While some puppies might even mouth the child’s hand in order to free themselves. Both ways the puppy will be dropped from mid-air in an awkward manner, and with any luck, the puppy might escape the fatal landing.

3. Appropriate Pet and Touch. Keep in mind that pulling and poking any part of the dog’s body are not considered as petting. Dogs prefer firm, calm, and slow strokes to light pat on their body. The safest area to stroke the dog is at the sides of his neck or chest, or along the body. Dogs get nervous when someone goes near his eyes and ears so avoid patting the dog on top of his head and face as children can be too boisterous with their clumsy movements.

4. Avoid Hugging and Squeezing. I’ve explained quite a bit about why dogs don’t do hugs so I won’t rehash it here. Nonetheless, I’d like to add one important thing is that hugging and squeezing the puppy too tight can result in injuries. Either the puppy gets his rib cage broken or your child gets a nasty scratch on his face or perhaps both get injured.

5. Respect Personal Space and Wishes. There are times when dogs like to be left alone such as their meal and sleeping time. Do not allow your child to go near the dog when he is chewing his beef jerky or toy for that matter. Also, do not allow your child to treat the dog as pillow. One or both of them may be suffocated during tossing and turning. One common disrespect of personal wishes, which I was guilty of, is that girls like to play dress up with their dogs. Discourage this behavior completely. Not only dogs don’t do hug; they also don’t do clothes or makeup or high heels. Buy more Barbie dolls to keep your daughter busy!

6. No Roughhousing, Wrestling, Running, and Jumping. Discourage aggressive play at all times whether you are there to supervise them or not. Do not let your child drag, pull, push, wrestle, ride, tackle, hit, poke, roll on the ground with the puppy, even in a playful way. If neither your child nor your dog is trained to play tug-of-war in proper manner, avoid this game all together. At the same time, do not let your puppy jump, chase after, and pounce on your child. If you do not correct these behaviors immediately, the puppy could easily mistaken these are part of the rough and tumble plays with his siblings treating your child as one of his “pack.” Your child’s Alpha status will be stripped off, eventually. Hence, your pup is likely to disobey the basic commands given by your child.

7. Appropriate Use of Commands. Puppies learn through repetition. Your child needs to understand that commands that we teach him are firm and absolute. It is also important for your child to use the same commands that you use. This will help the dog respect your child and teaches him to use the commands with respect toward the dog. When working on a new behavior, make sure that the dog masters the skill or command well before having your child work with the dog.

One Extra Habit of Strong Relationship

No Screaming, Yelling, and Throwing Tantrums. Having work and live with dogs for many years, I won’t deny there were days when I feel my dogs had invaded too much of my personal space and time. If I’m not careful, I somehow allow my emotions to take over. Fortunately, I was able to rectify my behavior as soon as I started it. On the other hand, children being who they are aren’t capable to contain their emotions as well as we can. When they have bad days in school, they may lash it out on the dog. Or when they didn’t get what they wanted, they may throw things at the dog to release their frustration. Similarly, there are also rambunctious puppies who just won’t stop doing mischievous acts. During these trying times, it’s best that the child and puppy have their own time out space for “reflection.”

As the saying goes, habits are hard to break. However, if we teach our children and dogs the right behaviors from the very beginning and supervise all interactions between them, they WILL develop many good habits—a strong relationship that lasts a lifetime.