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?

Janey you are absolutely correct.

LeEve, If you are a puppy owner you need to find a fenced and inaccessible area in which to conduct your recall training. Owning a dog without having a secure area to do this in isn't fair on your puppy or on people he may encounter, or on the farm animals he may be tempted to chase.

Please tell me how exactly I am supposed to 'force' a parent to actually parent their child? And why is it more important that I care for a child's safety than their own mother?

LeEve, You are not supposed to force anyone to do anything .
Where did you get that idea?

You are supposed to control your dog at all times. You are supposed to care more for children's safety around your dog than a parent may be because you are the owner of the dog and with ownership of a dog comes responsibility for the health and safety of others. The parents share that but ultimately you are the responsible party because you are the person who owns the dog and has to control it at all times when out.

pmsl are you 12 math ?
And yes I get out plenty thankyou
Luckily we do not encounter people like you with your warped views
Thankfully you are the minority
:)

LeEve, If you are a puppy owner you need to find a fenced and inaccessible area in which to conduct your recall training. Owning a dog without having a secure area to do this in isn't fair on your puppy or on people he may encounter, or on the farm animals he may be tempted to chase

Which is exactly what I do The MOD owned land that I use, and have permission to use is securely fenced, less two 5 bar gates that have a HUGE "MOD Property NO unauthorised access" sign attached. It isn't locked, because locked areas have to be patrolled and guarded and we (the unit 'we') no longer have the security staff to do so.

I am a responsible dog owner. I also foster and do 'start up' training for my local rescue - where Fridays pups came from. I do everything in my power to make sure people are 'safe' from the dumped and sometimes abused dogs that I foster.

I am NOT responsible for trespassing parents, or for parents that don't control their children when warned of danger (exaggeration really, pups wouldn't have ripped the child's face off, and if I was walking an abused dog I'd be using a muzzle, but a fair point I feel). I warned the parent, but I couldn't 'force' her to heed my warning (which is why I found it funny that she was pissed off at us for the state of her muddy child )

Funnily enough the same field is used for local 'search' dogs during the day. Those dogs are trained to be loyal to their owner/handler ONLY. They are not socialised and in most cases will not have been around children. I wont approach those dogs, ever. Maybe trespassing parent knows that, hence her early morning walk. In any case, if I wanted to be a bitch I could report her and she may be prosecuted (more likely just warned by a visit form the ModPlod) - a bit of a turnabout from the "I'll have your hide and your dogs too"

Did you really just say 'every child or adult occupies a place on the spectrum?' Oh dear you really aren't very familiar with SN are you. (I think there have been repeated threads on here about why that little bit of wisdom drives people to want to eat their sofa)

And no :sigh: - read what I have said. My only point about SN was as an example that you need to supervise adequately for the child. I mentioned SN saying that if I am capable of keeping my severely disabled child with no sense of danger safe by supervising him, then I don't see why a parent of an NT child shouldn't be able to manage the frankly easier task of doing the same with their young child. Remember I have NT kids, I know the amount of supervision they require. You can even sit of your backside & drink a cup of tea while supervising once they're verbal. it's not difficult. You were the one who made parenting a kids with disabilities into receiving advice from doctors & SW and an effort that it was unreasonable to expect anyone else to extend. My point about SN was purely that it ain't that difficult to adequately supervise a child.

Presumably if you are so into letting kids learn from their mistakes with dogs they're not particularly safe around horses, water, heights, cars, lawn mowers or boats either. Or do you manage to suddenly afequately supervise them then?

I don't think there's much prescriptive 'parents ought to' - other than 'parents ought to supervise their child adequately'. And 'if a parent doesn't supervise they bear some responsibility for what that child gets up to or what happens to their child whilst not being supervised'. That's it. Nothing more than that.

If a 2 year old ( I'll stick to young because it I use my son you will say it was different even though it's the exact same point) is knocked over then the car driver may end up prosecuted for driving too fast or whatever, but you can be certain people would be wondering what he or she was doing on the bloody road in the first place. 'Oh he's neurotypical & learns from his mistakes' wouldn't cut it. Neither would 'I can't be expected to supervise him that would be an unreasonable expection of effort on my part'

Dallas you're not really expecting a child to not trespass are you (or a parent to prevent that? Goodness there are arses to be sat on and tea to be drunk)

Math whether or not you believe that Donnadoon's children poke other children, the point is that if your child is liable to poke another child you need to supervise them closely, and in the event that they do poke another child, if because of some emergency you have been called to the other side of the playground to deal with a sibling, you do not ignore what is going on and you quickly deal with the situation.

It's just good manners, and certainly common practice in my neck of the woods, and I don't actually believe that you wouldn't do this.

It's one thing letting your child learn by experience, quite another to let them inconvenience others in the process.

In my experience the great outdoors is shared by many users, (around me it's about 20/80 leisure users and freely grazing animals) and good manners enable us all to get along together. "Can I stroke the doggy" is just part of that.

A random stranger never has ultimate responsibility for the safety of my children, ever.

I may make an assessment that someone poses no danger, but it's still my assessment and I'm still the one taking care of them.

My children are the most precious things in the world to me - I don't care if a stranger walking past has a dog, 16 puppies, a dancing monkey with a hat or an entire circus, I still don't trust them to look out for my children more than I do.

Dallas- we seem to be getting bogged down in the intricacies of public/ private land now...

I think many people are over complicating this.

Surely the bottom line is: as a parent it is my responsibility that my children don't actively behave negatively or in appropriately towards a dog ( ie they don't run up, touch them, bark at them etc )

As a dog owner; it is your responsibility to ensure that your animal does not behave inappropriately (ie bounding over, licking, jumping up etc)

As far as time of day goes: irrelevant. Doesn't make any difference whether its 6 am or pm

As far as location goes- anyway to which the public have rightful access ( and this of course includes private land where more than one party has permission to access) : the same rules apply.

Anyway= anywhere

Janey - we all agreed that days ago, except for those who keep insisting that dog owners are responsible for other peoples children as well.

Janey, if you RTT, that is exactly what dog owners have been saying. But we have been told, time and again, that no matter what the child does to a dog, even to a dog that is perfectly under control, it then becomes the responsibility/fault of the dog owner, not the parent

My conversation with mathanxiety continued because she believes that the simple fact I was walking (and training) two puppies alongside my dog, meant that I couldn't expect the child not to run up to them, even though said child had a parent with her that should have stopped her. Apparently owning a puppy means that the safety of children is abdicated to me - who knew?

Time of day is relevant for me as I chose that time purposefully as I (thought I) knew that no-one else would be in that field between 0530 and 0600. Sane people are usually still in bed!

Place is also relevant for me as I have permission to train there, civilians don't.

Had my (hypothetical) untrained dog ran up to a child in a public place and proceeded to maul her then OF COURSE I would accept responsibility for that. But I will not (and don't have to) accept responsibility for irresponsible parents who have neglected to train their children as well as I have trained my dog!

You seem to think Im disagreeing with you Dallas. I'm not!

It's just that your set of circumstances (ie having sole permission to train your dogs on privately owned land) is quite unusual. I just wanted to make the point that for most people, location is very relevant as they will be using public land or at least private land which they don't have sole access to.
I also don't think time of day is at all relevant as no one can assume that just because they walk their dog at 5 am, they can alter the rules on the basis that other people won't be about. And actually I know quite a few dog walkers who are out late at night / early morning. Indeed, if I chose to own a pet I would probably need to walk it well before 6 am because my morning routine of getting the kids up and then myself out to work starts early

Dallas- just to add that while you are clearly a very responsible dog owner, I've encountered some people who dont use a private, secure area for recall training. They may try to pick a 'less busy' time of day, but they are still using a field, park or beach or wherever, before their pet is reliably trained. It's not the dogs fault: all puppies need training. And I've come across these pet owners who seem to think that during the process of training they are somehow exempted from responsibility. If their dog comes bounding up, they'll say 'oh sorry he's not fully trained yet'.
That's not my responsibility. I even had one dog owner try to tell my young dd how to behave when their dog came bounding up - 'just keep still, he's only a pup, he won't hurt, he's just excited...'
Er... No, it's not up to my dd to behave "correctly" in response to your dog not being under your control. Like I say, if it were the other way around and my dd had come leaping towards your dog, then sure, it would have been my fault. But adults and children are perfectly at liberty to walk in public places any time of day or night without other people's pets causing annoyance

janey68 that dog owner was in the wrong there for sure.

And owners like that give us a bad name. But overall on this thread no ones disputed that dogs need to be under control at ALL times.

Mine isn't fully trained - I'm not worried about his reactions to children while he's on the lead because he's a soppy friendly thing who has been well socialised, but his recall is embarrassingly bad.

So he stays on lead if there's anyone else within sight - if he's off lead and someone comes into sight I've got plenty of time to get him back on before he'd notice them.

I don't let him near people off lead because he would bounce at them, jumping and licking...so I just don't give him the chance to do that.

It's what you should be doing if your dog isn't reliable.

Janey - whilst a dog shouldn't come bounding up to you uninvited I don't see what's wrong with telling your kids to stand still. It's what I used to shout to then-dog-scared ds2 if dogs came near him, because running would just make them more playful. It depends on whether you take it as an order or advice I guess. If someone says to me - that horse doesn't like his face touched, I tend to listen & not touch the face rather than complain about it iyswim.

I do see what you mean, but I don't think that's a very clear comparison, because to my mind, a child (or adult) shouldn't be touching a horse or other pet in the first please, without a clear invitation from the owner.

I'm not talking about children actively doing things to annoy or upset an animal; I'm talking about scenarios where a family are simply minding their own business out for a walk and a dog comes bounding over. It may well be the 'best' response for the child to keep still and not excite or antagonise the animal even further, but my point is that shouldn't even come into the equation because the onus is on the owner to control their pet

As Dallas said: she isn't responsible for someone's child running up or touching an animal. Neither am I responsible for someone's animal running over or touching me or my children.

The issue about training is quite central I think because IME most dog owners I know dont use private secure land until their dog is fully, reliably recall trained. Many of them seem to use the training period as a phase where they somehow have an 'excuse' for any unacceptable behaviour: they laugh it off as 'one of those things' which is not ok

I think the thing with dog training is that it can be one step forward six back. So my dog was recall trained, then his teenage dog years and started disappearing into the distance. So went back on his lead until he was trained again. It is similar to being out on a horse- they can do unexpected things (actually rather more often than dogs ime) however well trained.

I think whether or not it's acceptable for a child to touch the dog or horse uninvited in the first place is a lot of what this thread is about. I think we all agree that dogs shouldn't come bounding over and if they do the owner should react appropriately. Although personally providing it's not a muddy dog when I have to be clean (which is very rare in my case) I quite like it

I'm not sure many of us have access to privately owned enclosed land! I would love it, but alas it's not available. I wouldn't try and train a dog around a lot of people though. I do know which times to visit which places to make it unlikely that we'll see anyone (& if we do they'll be dog walkers). If it's very busy - especially with children- then he stays on his lead.

Just as dogs should be trained and supervised closely, so should some children TBH.

This is the way I see things:

A dog owner should ensure, as much as is reasonable, that their dog doesn't injure/bite/scare a child.

Parents should also take adequate precautions to ensure their DC do not injure/bite/torture/scare a dog.

My friend had her dog lying snoozing on the grass beside her picnic table. Said dog was not on the DDA, was muzzled (cage muzzle) and on a leash. A child came over and started poking their finger into the muzzle and really irritating the dog. Said child was told that the dog would bite/nip if they continued to annoy, but the child kept on poking and prodding. My friend tried moving away to another picnic table but the child followed and kept on and on at the dog. My friend spotted the parents and asked them politely to keep their child away and got a mouthful of abuse about her dog being under control, and the parents let said child annoy the dog even more so the dog let out a warning yelp. My friend said to the child about the dog giving the yelp and how it was a warning that the dog was going to bite/nip next time. Said child was pulling the dog's ears by this time, so the dog had become pissed off and nipped the child (not hard).

So this all ends up with the cops being involved and going to court. The judge deemed the dog to be under more than reasonable control and found the parents at fault. Judge found that my friend did what was more than reasonably expected in order to keep the child from getting bitten and that the parents failed in their duty of care to keep their child adequately supervised under reasonable control. So my friend was let off and the parents were ordered to go to a 4wk (Mon-Fri) parenting classes and a 10 week dog information class covering the ins and outs of how and why dogs act and react aggressively, how to act around dogs to minimise being bitten/injured etc, etc.

So the moral of that story is that the dog and the owner isn't always seen to be at fault if a child persistently tortures a dog to the point of being bitten, despite the owner doing more than what is reasonably expected to keep a child from being injured by the dog.

That should be on the DDA list.

LtEve, you should not use MOD land for training potentially dangerous dogs on. If members of the public have access to it (even if they are trespassing) and if you deal with dogs from a shelter then you are being irresponsible and the MOD may be liable for damage done by dogs you are working with. The ideal place to train puppies or work with shelter dogs is your own private and secure property.

Chiggers - What exact "crime" where the parents convicted of that required attendance of a parenting class and a 10 week dog information class. What court handed out this sentence?

I find your story rather unusual.

I will never forget when I was a child and I had the sloppiest, most cuddley friendly dog in the world and my little shit of a cousin pulled on his tail so hard that doggy nipped his hand (not breaking skin) but aunty made such a fuss over it we had to say bye bye doggy and sell him :(

Owners should control and train their dogs to the best of their ability and keep them on a lead where appropriate but come on people, use common sense. Teaching dd/ds basic common sense isn't going to hurt anyone. Basic dog manners transfers to people etiquette too.. No hitting and ask before touching!!