To think parents should teach their children how to behave round dogs

[Xihha]

There have been a few posts lately about people needing to control their dogs more (and I agree, if you cant control our dog and clean up after it then you shouldn't have a dog imo), but is it unreasonable to expect parents to teach children to be a bit more careful round dogs?

Whilst walking my dog (on his lead) a child who looked about 10 ran up and stuck his head in my dogs face to make a fuss of him whilst i was picking up doggys poo, without checking if it was ok, there have been other times kids have just walked up and started pulling doggy around, this sort of thing happens a lot, especially in the summer when there are more kids out playing and the parents rarely say anything about it.

It's not really an issue with my great soppy lump of a dog because he loves kids and will put up with anything for a bit of fuss but shouldn't these kids know that you should check with the owners before approaching strange dogs and that even a nice dog can get pissed of if you start pulling it around?

Wow so it's "vigilant to an unreasonable degree" to expect parents to keep an eye on what their children are doing and not letting them do whatever they want to? I thought that was just called parenting..

And actually no, dogs are not fine to walk during the night only, they are not nocturnal animals

Math - remind me never to let you anywhere near supervising my severely autistic son, I have had to scan & plan ahead every single trip out for the 13 years since he's been walking. It's what you do as a parent. If your child isn't old or capable enough to learn how to approach dogs they're also not going to be safe around ponds, strangers, water, cars, bicycles, babies or - er - anything & I'd be keeping a very close eye on them.

You keep ignoring me when I tell you my friend had to try & avoid small children & babies because her dd hated them & would express her opinion loudly every time she saw them - and she found it impossible. Small kids are everywhere.

Yes its the law you have to keep your dog under control, obviously. But its good parenting to keep your child from potential harm whether its dogs, traffic, rivers.. don't understand how this has got to 800 posts!

Lazeyjaney - the thing that you're not able to grasp is that the parent of a child is responsible for preventing them from causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal under the animal welfare act.

Laws do not work in isolation from each other.

I get that children are just being children. Sometimes they don't listen and that is to be expected. But isn't that why a responsible adult has to supervise them?

If I was sat on a bench looking at my mobile and a child wanted to see it and grabbed it from me I would expect the adult in charge of the child to apologise for the child's behaviour. Basic manners.

If I was sat on a park bench eating a packet of crisps and a child wanted one so grabbed the packet I would expect the adult in charge of the child to apologise for the child's behaviour. Basic manners.

If I was sat on a park bench with my dog at my feet and a child ran over and grabbed his ears I would expect the adult in charge of the child to apologise for the child's behaviour. Basic manners.

Then I would hope that the parent would talk to the child about other people's property/strangers/dogs.

It's not about the law or being bitten as I have already said I take responsability for my dog causing any harm to anyone. The origianal OP states the parents rarely say anything about it. which is what my issue is.

Out of interest, how often have children run up to your dogs and poked them or hurt them? It's certainly never happened to me......

'Out of interest, how often have children run up to your dogs and poked them or hurt them? It's certainly never happened to me......'

I've never had a child do anything physically worse than poke prod or pull my dog and timings are obviously me just trying to average it out rather than anything exact.

Shouting (at the dog, not just randomly) barking (no I don't understand that one either) or just jumping in front of the dog making aggressive noises, or jumping in front of him and stamping their feet, coming up to the dog and taunting the dog with a stick/ball/other object in an obviously mean way rather than genuinely trying to play with him...about once every three weeks or so. That's always unaccompanied children between the ages of about 8 and 12.

Running up and clearly wanting to just interact with the dog but being a bit rough and either being alone or not actually supervised in any way by the adult with them...about once a week or so, possibly a bit more often.

Asking or being pleasant or being supervised by an adult to do either happens every couple of days - so obviously the nice encounters vastly outnumber the other ones.

It's not a massive serious issue for me, it's nothing more than a bit irritating, like I said my dog very much likes the small versions of people, they're fun and he takes the poking and prodding in his stride, assumes that random barking or stamping of feet are part of some sort of game - but I can easily see how some dogs who aren't quite as used to children or as playful as he is could become nervous of children.

Yesterday morning curlew. Came across Mother and small child, child wanted to pet my dog, fine as he is on a lead and v friendly (esp to children).
Child immediatley went to pull dogs tail - both Mother & I said NO and the Mum grabbed her child's hand.
She told child not to pull the tail, to stroke ears/head, released child's hand & he went straight to pull the dog's tail again! Again The Mum grabbed her child's hand to prevent it and told child again not to pull the dog's tail OR IT MAY BITE AS YOU MAY HURT IT.

No harm done to either child or dog, hopefully child learning how to interact with animal.

Curlew, often when I am with Whippy, she is especially small, she walks funny and she pulls funny faces. Children think she is ahh-maazing. Plus she still looks like a puppy and as a Tabulaha has just pointed out children often fail to control themselves around puppies and adults tend not bother controlling the child because it's 'only' a puppy, we tend to forget this because when we first get our new puppy we are so proud that we want to be stopped by everyone we see telling how lovely our puppy is. After 4 years it tends to get a bit tiring.

How often does she get hurt? She is very thin, she has very little body fat to cover her bones. If she's patted in that delightful toddler it hurts her. I can see that because she cowers and starts licking her lips, but she doesn't move away or bite. She was very, very socialised with children from a very young age. Before she was vaccinated she would do the school run twice a day from dd2's lap in the buggy. DD2 was trained to feed her small treats every time some one stopped to talk to her. Whippy thinks children are as amazing as they do her.

Although we spent all of that time socialising her, she is naturally wary breed, loud noises still scare her, children running screeching towards her, terrifies her and she will urinate in fear.

None of this is dangerous to her of course, but it is not nice for her. When I walk her on the school run, I expect children to run up to her and pet her, this is why she is there, we've normally been asked to take her by a few of the children, who all adore her. They mostly behave very well with her. Because it is very busy parents are watching the toddlers and will tell them to be gentle with her and not to screech at her. I am fine with this. Whippy is fine with this.

When we are in the park and it is less busy, parent's tend to forget that they need to parent their young child and allow the child to run up to us while they are stood chatting some distance away or while they are dawdling behind us. These are not always children who know us from the school run. They do not always know to be gentle with her and not screech in delight right near her face. The parents are too far away to even see what the child is doing, let alone take any action to stop them. This is what I hate.

I have no issues at all with a nice polite child, walking up to me with their parent in tow and asking if they can pet her. I understand that children will sometimes run off, but I do firmly believe that as a parent it is up to you to run after them, don't just ignore them and carrying on chatting/dawdling. Your child has just run up to a stranger and is now harassing that strangers property. You have no idea who this person is. I may have stolen Whippy in order to lure children away from their parents for all you know.

We sometimes see children we know when Whippy is off lead, I have no issue at all with them calling her name and encouraging her to come and see them but if I am all the way across the other side of the field and you call my dog, I am not a whippet, I cannot run as fast as a whippet, so if your child does this, do not blame me if she jumps on your child's lap while they are crouched down to see her and covers them in mud, I would have assumed since you have called her by her name, you know her, you know she likes sitting in laps. I will assume you gave your child permission to call her since you've made no clear effort to me to stop your child calling her. Whippy doesn't like leaving me, so you'd have to have called her several times for you to now have her with you without me. If you just call "puppy" Or "dog" she is trained not to respond to that to get her to come to you you'd need to know her actual name.

That's actually an important point - my dog is around the 6 stone mark and not a breed with little body covering...most of my previous dogs have been, the most exuberant of toddler patting isn't really causing masses of discomfort, for a little dog or one with less muscle mass or bred to have less body fat that's not the same.

Most of my previous dogs have been the same sort of size and build as this one I mean, though varying breeds.

Yes, it is easy to forget how differently different breeds are composed. A hard pat to my terrier would cause him minor discomfort, a firm-ish pat, he actually likes.

A harder pat across whippy's spine or hips could lead to serious injury, she is literally just skin over bone in those places, push down on her too hard you could break her legs, her thighs and shoulders are very muscular, but this does not apply to her lower legs, back and ribs. A well meaning toddler patting her too hard could lead to broken bones or worse very easily.

Parents take much more notice of a child running up to my german shepherd and act to stop them than they do my golden retriever. The golden is far more likely to jump up but breed bias goes a long way.

Children however prefer my GSD as he is very fluffy and in their eyes very huggable. Tail pulling is popular if not watched out for and the fluffy bits around his ears. 99% of kids don't mean to hurt them and if I am prewarned I can pop him in a sit and show kids how to pat his chest (which he likes) or I can explain that I'm very busy and need to keep going. Neither of which is an option when children launch themselves on us. I very rarely go to parks now so this only happens about once a month and most often on the cycle path.

I did have a child slap my jack russell around the face once and I shouted at him. He cried and ran back to his parents but I honestly didn't care. She was very old and was doing nothing but sniffing the grass. Parents said nothing.

Off topic...but isn't there something a bit wrong with having over bred dogs to the point that a harder pat could break bones?

Oh and...because we were talking about how often - there have been one off specific incidents worth mentioning.

Current dog has a joint problem which involved surgery on his leg when he was about 6 months old, after a 3 week recuperation I was under vet's orders to start very very short walks to rebuild his muscle tone and see how his leg was doing after surgery. So basically strolling down my street and back with a hobbling puppy with a very obviously shaved leg, I did this in times when I thought it was very unlikely for people to be about, stopped and crossed the road if I saw anyone coming or put him in a sit stay and stood in front of him with him against a fence and told anyone who looked like they might want to come and say hello to him not to because he'd just had an operation and wasn't well and I still got a few children coming over to stroke him in those few weeks. I wasn't avoiding people because they might hurt him and he might bite - just because he's an idiot who wouldn't think of not jarring his leg if there was a chance of a fuss from someone.

When I had my previous dog who was a large black dog of unknown parentage I looked after a little fluffy spaniel cross for a while. My dog was an adult, well trained, pretty much as bombproof around kids as it's possible to be dog, the little fluffy one was young, untrained and muzzled in public the amount of parents who would let their child stroke the little fluffy dog even when wearing a muzzle and I was telling them that the big dog is better behaved was staggering. As it happens I was just trying to teach him not to jump up and the muzzle was for the benefit of other dogs, but you'd think if the combination of a muzzle and actually saying stroke the big one not the little one would make them be a bit more cautious about their children when they don't know me or the dog.

She's not over bred, her composition is very typical for a dog with her breeding. The breeds she is have been that way for many hundreds of years. Whippets are actually one of the healthier breeds, largely unaffected by over breeding unlike the Lab and GSD.

Whippets were bred to race and to be as streamlined as possible. She is not a pure whippet, I suspect she is crossed with the smaller, more fragile italian greyhound, who were bred to be lapdogs mainly. She is far smaller than a typical whippet, but slightly taller than a typical IG. Her behavior also suggests that there is a touch of collie in there, she tends to stalk things she is interested in that dropped down to the ground collie way and likes to keep her people in a group, she will get very annoyed of dd1 goes hurtling off on her bike and will attempt to chase after her and 'round her back up'

Dogs where not bred with the behavior of modern day, unsupervised children in mind.

Even without her being a whippet though, size makes a difference...the bones of a cat, a cat sized dog or even a dog twice the size of a dog are pretty obviously much smaller, thinner and more delicate than say cocker spaniel and even their bones are more delicate than something like a labrador.

a dog twice the size of that, because a dog twice the size of a dog is still well, dog sized, lol

math

1. 'it appears from this thread that the main concern is the feelings of dogs or the irritation of the owners. I am not getting the impression that dog owners here are worried that their dog might bite or injure someone.' I disagree. I am getting the strong impression that dog owners on this thread want to do everything to ensure both the comfort of their dogs and the safety of children who want to approach/touch them. Examples: 'If you give the owner fair warning before asking if your child can interact with their dog they can put the dog in a safer position... and show your child, with your help, where to stroke and how to do it gently... Or they can say no your child can't stroke him as - he's old/recovering from injury/scared of children etc'.

'the child starts to run over. I call out "Sorry, pups aren't trained yet, let me get them on leads'.

'I like to have the opportunity to get down to dog/child level and hold them still while a child strokes them. I feel better, the dogs know they are safe, the children get the chance to gently stroke the cute puppy and the funny looking older one.'

'[a dog] if jumped upon by a boisterous child or adult when not expecting it as owner has not been asked and given time to advise may snap. This is not to say they are trying to hurt but just to warn the threat off. This is why as owners we would prefer those sorts of people either asked or stayed away as we are trying to stay away from them.'

'I have 100% responsibility to make sure my dogs do not hurt anyone.'

2. I stand by saying 'How dare you?' because trying to tell people they should change their schedules and not walk at certain times in case there are children in the vicinity is arrogant and bossy and, genuinely, I don't know how anyone would dare say that. Personally I'd quite like it, in an ideal world, if people didn't walk their dogs past restaurants with outside seats because of the occasional time when a dog pees up the side of the restaurant rope/tree/plant pot. But I wouldn't dream of trying to tell anyone that they must cross the road or avoid areas with outside seating.

3. 'You clearly do not understand that if you love your dog it is likely that children are going to find it attractive too. Is there too much putting of yourself in someone else's shoes required here?' Dog owners DO realise that children might find their dogs attractive (examples: 'My brother has a particularly fluffy cute breed of dog that attracts kids''; 'One of mine is particularly small and funny looking, we are stopped almost constantly'.)

4. 'It is completely unreasonable for you to take out a dog among children, many of whom do not understand much language and are really forgetful, and expect them to stay away, given the attractiveness to children of many dogs.' The main sentiment as I read the thread seems to be not expecting children to stay away per se, but are simply asking that parents take reasonable steps to make their child pause before approaching a dog and ask before petting it, or that the parent themselves, if necessary, restrain the child and ask for them.

5. 'What is being said over and over again is that dog owners' expectation that children will remember is crazy.' Again from my reading of the thread, dog owners are NOT expecting children to remember. They are asking that parents, as above, get their child to pause/stop rather than just approaching a dog, and show their child (or let the dog owner show them) how to approach and touch them safely.

6. 'You are dragging an old three-legged dog out for a walk -- why?' A spiteful and stupid comment. Why do you say 'dragging'? (implication: against the dog's wishes). Do you think owners would really do this? Do you think old/three-legged dogs do not and cannot enjoy going out for walks? By the way, I know the three-legged dog here is hypothetical. But such dogs do exist. I for one see quite a few and I can say fairly confidently that they give every impression of enjoying their walks.

7. 'Do you absolutely have to take your baby out for a walk and is the dog along for the ride so to speak?' Baffling. No one 'absolutely' has to take their baby out for a walk, no. Are you seriously saying that people shouldn't?

I've had enough of this thread now and won't be back. I've found it very saddening that some posters seem so willing to go on the attack and assign blame rather than thinking that they should assume some responsibility and behave pleasantly.

It can all be summed up (and I'm repeating myself here, just as you were) by curlew's post:
'1) Parents should teach their children how to behave around potentially dangerous things- ponds, cars, ovens, dogs, matches,chain saws,glass coffee tables.....

2. People who own said potentially dangerous things should behave as if children haven't been taught or have forgotten.'

Dogs where not bred with the behavior of modern day, unsupervised children in mind.

That is hilarious.
Back in the day, dogs and children alike roamed the streets freely in hordes. There were thousands of children in the streets in little gangs. They were often abandoned or had homes too poor to afford them food or much by way of shelter. Many worked as chimney sweeps or scavengers. Many were thieves or pickpockets.

"Dogs where not bred with the behavior of modern day, unsupervised children in mind."

Well it seems we all agree on the nature of the problem at least. I would go a little further to say that dogs were not bred with the behavior of modern day dog owners in mind. Or in other words they weren't bred to be kept purely as pets, to live in houses, and only have restricted access to the great outdoors.

I would suggest that dogs are not at all suited to modern day life and that keeping them as pets should be reconsidered as a whole.

As I just stated whippy's 'main' breed was bred specifically for being a companion dog, if that's not a pet then fuck knows what it is

They also hate being outside dogs and they are not suited at all to be outside for long periods of time in any kind of weather other than mild, so restricting her access to the great outdoors is kinda vital to keeping, you know, alive n shit

Iggies and many other breeds were bred specifically for being house pets.

Yes, many dogs are working dogs and yes, many families commit to owning them without fully understanding their social, mental and physical needs. And yes, this is a problem, mainly for the rescues that have to mop up the mess when Mrs. Cute Lab/Poodle X owner realises just how much work her highly intelligent and active dog is but that is not all relevant to wanting young children to supervised when they come to greet strange people and strange dogs.

Back in the day, dogs and children alike roamed the streets freely in hordes etc.

And back in the day no-one gave a toss if kids were bitten. There was no calling of "I'll have your hide and the dogs too"

There was no DDA, there were no laws relating to dog ownership and control. There were no laws relating to cruelty to animals either.

But then the children of well to do families that did keep dogs were better behaved, strictly disciplined and probably terrified to step out of line.

Thankfully the child that ran over to us this morning was fine (if covered in mud, dog slobber and stinky pond smell). But puppies bite, a lot. They 'mouth' as they are teething and have to be taught not to. Puppies teeth are like needles. Which is why I wanted to put them on leads before the child reached us - and had mum or child listened to me I would have been able to show them the best way to approach and fuss a pup without getting mouthed. I didn't get the chance.

Mum was obviously annoyed with her dirty daughter, how much more annoyed would she have been if daughter was dirty and bleeding?

Like I said, luckily everything was fine. Child (and pups) had a great time. But it easily might not have been - and that would NOT have been my fault.

Have only skimmed the thread as I might lose the will to live plodding through hundreds of posts. But YANBU to expect parents to teach their children what not to do around dogs (ie run at them, stroke unknown dogs, make barking noises at them etc). All absolutely within the remit of good parenting

However, it is not my responsibility as a parent to teach my child to not be afraid, or to keep still, if a dog comes bounding up. It is your responsibility as a dog owner to teach your dog not to do that.

So in other words, teaching children to avoid negative behaviour: fine. But the onus is on the dog owner to keep their animal under control.

"However, it is not my responsibility as a parent to teach my child to not be afraid, or to keep still, if a dog comes bounding up. It is your responsibility as a dog owner to teach your dog not to do that."

Absolutely - it's a shame that not all dog owners are responsible enough to do that, it's just as annoying for dog other owners when dogs to that to your dog by the way. Well ok, not quite as annoying - my dog's been attacked twice while on the lead walking beside me because other dogs have been loose, I'd possibly not be quite as collected if that had been one of my children, lol. But the 'friendly' offlead dogs that bounce over are annoying when you've got your dog with you.

"Back in the day, dogs and children alike roamed the streets freely in hordes." Not the tiny delicate ones, they were mostly bred as lap dogs for the upper classes and worth a fortune.