If you have a dog, do you NEVER leave your kid(s) and dog alone EVER?

[DrNortherner]

I have a 6 year old ds and a 12 month old black lab. He is my first dog.

He is lovely, gentle, kind, playful though a tad boisterious!

Now, sometimes I go upsatirs and ds and mu dog are downstairs alone. AS the dog he so friendly it has never occurred to me that this could be a dangerous situation.

Should I remove my dog from the room ds is in and close all doors so the dog can not get to him while i am upstairs or is the crazy as Labs are hardly known for mauling children are they?

Views apprecited please, and hones answers on what other dog owners do.

Many Thanks

I think you need to know an awful lot about dogs, their behaviour and their language before you can truely asess how safe they are.

Our previous dog was 99.9% trustworthy (the 0.1% is simply because she was a dog and no animal can be 100% IMO). Almost without realising I would not leave the children properly alone with her (ie for more than 1 or 2 minutes). I would go in the kitchen to get the washing, bring into the room to sort then put it in the stairs to take upstairs when we all went up. If I was in the kitchen for any length of time then I would take her with me.

With my next dog (a niece of the first dog from the same breeder etc) I would never have left my children alone, even for a second. Although she had done nothing to deserve it I was just certain that she could not be trusted the way the first one could. It turned out that she had epilepsy which we found out when she attacked me. It broke my heart to watch because she was going crazy trying not to bite me but was desperate to bite me as well IYSWIM. She bit the lead, my shoes, the ground, threw herself on the floor - anything but bite me. However massive her efforts though I am under no illusion that, had it been one of my children, firstly the tiny nips I got would have been devestating and secondly that she would not have the same bond with them as me (I was always Alpha in our pack) and may not have managed to hold back in the same way.

IMHO you should make every reasonable effort you can not to leave a dog and child alone, a baby has to be introduced carefully so that the dog knows it is supposed to protect it. Even an older child can put a dog under stress and there is nothing to say that the dog will be healthy and of sound mind. Things do go wrong, things that you could not possibly have expected so it is best to be over cautious on this one.

BTW, Labs are known for getting grouchy as they get older and many (once they get like this) will snap at irritating children with little or no provocation. My feeling is that Labs are not dogs for families with small children, they are a working dog and should be treated as such (but I also know I am in a massive minority so I usually keep that opinion quiet!)

I simply have to poke my nose in this thread lol

I admit i do carp on about dogs being left alone with children. My dog also follows me everywhere. However, i never actually seperate the dog from DS (3 weeks old now) he just chooses to stay seperate, and knows he isn't allowed in the living room at all.. he lies in the doorway.. even when DS1 (11) walks into LR, the dog stops dead as if he has hit a wall. I DO walk round downstairs leaving the dog in the LR doorway to, say, go into the kitchen, i also use the DS/loo leaving dog where he is. He knows he is below everyone else in the house but should not IMO be excluded from the family.. if i go upstairs though he does get sent in the kitchen, but is very rare as obv. i do not leave baby alone for more than a couple of minutes..and then only if he is in his bouncy chair.

So despite my going on about it, i guess i do leave a tiny window of opportunity. IMO if i kept the dog excluded he may get more jealous or, more to the point, be more interested in baby than he would be if he were not allowed contact at all.

Its a thin line as with everything else in life i suppose. I leave Dsd and Dss (from the ages of 4 and 5, now 6 and 7) alone with him without any qualms whatsoever. My worst fear with baby is not attack, its clumsy oaf treading on/scratching by accident.
Must not become too complacent though.
Only dog to have ever bitten kids btw was my DS1's nanna and grandads dog, who bit both DS and DD on a number of occasions until i threatened to stop contact/kill dog with bare hands if they didn't do something to stop him, they actually seemed to find it almost funny that he bit the kids out of jealousy when they went to hug ExPIL.. disgusting behaviour and just the kind to encourage a badly behaved / brought up dog to be an attacker. Dogs that are pampered and 'mummied' are dangerous IMHO.

MitchyInge makes the very good point that pack theory is outdated, discredited and can actually be dangerous when well-meaning but ill-informed people attempt to apply it to their family situation. Sadly from this thread it seems that it is still a widely held belief that dogs assume humans are pack members. The truth is that dogs don't even know what a pack is, never having lived in one. They are not wolves, nor do they live in the wild, and therefore cannot be assumed to behave as wolves would.

Another worrying theme here is the belief that breed has an impact on how a dog behaves in a stressful situation eg "Labs are hardly known for mauling children", "one of these bloody Staffs/pit bull things are like to savage a child". The breed is irrelevant. If a dog is forced into a situation where it is threatened, its resources are threatened or its warning signs are iggnored, then a child is at risk.

It's up to the individual owner to judge, on that basis, whether they trust their child to be left alone with the dog.

even wolves don't structure their hierarchy as rigidly as pack theory suggests

I agree it's the individual nature of the dog, the situation, and the way the dog has been treated. Whilst I say my dog "knows his place", he's a terrier and will always try to "up his status" (with him it's more about trying to get on the sofa/bed than any challenging behaviour though!) so it's not a guarantee to me that it's all sorted as far as him and my child are concerned - you need to constantly monitor and re-asses the situation.
And you need to be a good dog owner in the first place to trust your judgement, which is probably where the problem lies - lots of people think they understand dogs when in fact they are spoiling them in the true sense of the word.

I have had much contact with all breeds, especially those which are meant to be the "danger dogs", but the three dogs that have bitten me in my life were an alsatian puppy, a chocolate lab and a poodle. Certainly the latter two are the types you wouldn't label as a danger, but both were mollycoddled.

So often, when you hear the stories in the paper about kids being mauled by dogs, it isn't the dogs they live with, but the grandparents' pets, or out in public though.

Can I ask how others introduced their newborns to the pets? When we came home we popped the carseat on the floor and let my dog have a sniff (trying to look completely calm despite being ready to pounced if he attempted a lick or something!), he wagged his tail and then promptly ignored him for several weeks. Just wondered how others did it. I'm having a 2nd baby in a couple of weeks and plan to do the same thing although I don't think the dog will be as bothered this time, probably just resigned to even less attention!

i leave my dog alone with my dd ,she is six now but was 2 and a half when we got him ,the dog was about 14 months old . i leave him alone with her all the time ,infact they are both snuggled up on the sofa watching cbeebies as we speak!i trust him but i also trust her ,he knows his place is at the bottem of the pack . I wouldnt leave him alone with dd and her friends when they play in the garden though as high pitched shrieking makes him want to join in with the game and he is too big and clumsy. I wouldnt leave him alone with a baby though ,as babies do bizzare things and make strange scary noises which could spook him.

Not sure I agree that dogs do not know what a pack is if they have never lived in one. Surely the family they live in becomes their pack? And if not controlled and disciplined correctly they will display dominant or agressive behaviours.

it's a social group, you can think of it as a pack it's just that the theory underpinning 'pack theory' and 'rank reduction' is deeply flawed and has no basis either in real, wild wolf behaviour or in domestic dogs

I leave my 8yo DD downstairs with the dog. Mainly 'cos the dog never gets off her bed unless I rattle the lead or open the fridge and DD knows not to go to her when she's on her bed.

I leave my dd alone with the dog but last week had a bit of a shock when her friend (16 years old) came round with 20 stitches in her face. Their incredibly soppy and docile cocker spaniel bit her for no reason. All the family were in the room at the time watching tv and it just happened. She spent 5 hours in A&E and has a huge cut from her nose down to her lip.
It reminded me that no matter how well we think we know our dogs they can act unpredictably.

Can i just say re pack theory

My DP.. i have seen it in action with him. Since the baby was born the dog has increasingly been more and more, not agressive, but, defensive, if the baby cries when DP is in the room, the dog sits and stares at him intently..as if DP is the reason the baby is crying. He will not allow DP near me sometimes, without trying to get inbetween us. If DP feeds him, he ignores his food bowl, unless DP stands there or comes into the room, the dog hovers over his bowl growling, something he has never done ..

He herds my son around DP also, he is 11 y/o, and the dog is almost constantly between them if he can help it, this is another thing he has never done. I only have to look at the dog if he is on the scrounge and he gets up and moves away, i have never hurt him so i assume this means he knows i'm the boss. He ignores everyone else when they tell him to get out, or attempt to give him 'the look'

I guess he just finds me threatening or something i know he relies on me to feed him, i know he considers that i protect him (against horrible teenage boys )

I don't know but i believe in pack mentality tbh.

lotster we pretty much did the same dog/baby introduction as you. Our Dane was just over 1 year old and I came home from hospital after 2 days, sat in the kitchen with new baby on my lap and let the dog have a good look/sniff/lick (yuk). The dog was delighted with new arrival. Also, the baby had to fit in with the dog, he never missed a walk, or a play or training session, the baby just came too (or was asleep). We did the same with the next 3 babies and although he was 8yo when the last one arrived, he was just as interested. The last two babies were born at home and he was completely calm about the whole thing.

Our dog is happiest when he's fully involved in family activities. I'm fairly sure that with the dog we have, any sort of exclusion would have created problems, not avoided them.

OP - Our dog & children mingle freely. Unless dogs are kenneled outside, I don't see how anyone could keep them separate from children all the time.

VP - I grew up with a Dane/Alsatian Cross until I was four when he passed away! such a massive dog but so gentle, I remember sitting in between his front legs and being dwarfed by him.

My kids curl up with him to watch TV, he's long enough for 3 primary aged children to lean against. He does have terrible wind though.

He'll be 9 in July. Eeek. We'll be devastated when he dies.

I've posted this link before but here it is again for those who are sure that pack theory is valid.

Link

Modern, positive dog training methods are far kinder and more sympathetic to the stress which a dog is undergoing (BlueSapphire77, your dog sounds very stressed to me), whereas pack theory assumes that every dog wants to challenge for the top spot. Which is simply nonsense.

My dd is 7 and walks the dog on her own, I did not leaver her alone with him when she was younger though. He is a springer if relevant.

dexter

I've never considered us as a 'pack', just a family unit. DH and I are in charge of our dog, in so much that we are his trainers, set the house rules and are skilled in the preparation of dinner. The four children ditto!

Hope, if you read that article in full you will find it is referenced and is probably as close to proof as we can get at this point in time. You will also find that most reputable trainers and behaviourists (in particular those who have membership of the APDT or APBC) have abandoned dominance and pack theory.

The thing is, leaving behind the old strategies involved in pack theory doesn't mean you can't be "in charge". It does mean that you need to show confidence and leadership. It also relies on you reading your dogs' messages. Small children cannot be expected to read the body language of a dog when they have yet to learn so much about human communication therefore small children tend to be involved in incidents with dogs more than adults. The vast majority of dog-related injuries to children occur in the family home with a familiar pet.

I'm glad that this came up. We have tried as mch as possible to let Boydog and Girldog know that little Ff is part of the pack (yes, I do subscribe to this theory, mainly because following it has worked for us), and have never excluded them. As far as was possible, their lives haven't changed since she was born. (She is 11 mo, by the way.) They still get walked twice a day, they were not allowed upstairs anyway, and still have free run of downstairs, including the sofas. (Because what is the point of having a dog if they can't act as teddy bears/foot warmers?)

They have always been allowed to investigate her - Lotster, we put the carseat on the floor when we brought her home and let them sniff. Boydog got excited whenever she made a noise for the first week, but that soon passed. I was worried when she started playing on the floor, but they always seem very aware of their size and bulk, and give her all the space she needs.

Boydog isn't wary of her, but takes himself away if she moves towards him, or tries to stroke him. He is a very gentle dog, and often gives her a sniff and a lick when passing, but seems to prefer not to be bothered by her. Girldog, on the other hand, is her best friend. Ff first pulled herself up to her feet using Girldog's collar, and loves patting her head, or snuggling up to her side. All of this conatct is, of course, closely supervised, but I have been surprised and touched by how two huge dogs appear to modify themselves in order to be gentle with her.

I wouldn't leave her on the floor in a room with them if I wasn't there. They are only two and three, and still prone to sudden dashes if the door goes, and while I am confident they would avoid her, I wouldn't take the chance. When she is in her walker/chair thingy, I do leave them alone briefly, but only because I am 99.9% confident in them, and we have ahd them since they were puppies, so have been responsible for their training and can reasonably accurately judge their reactions. Neither have ever reacted violently to provocation, even from quite fierce seeming dogs.

However, I tend to banish them if other babies/children come to the house, purely because they are big, and young children are unpredictable. It isn't fair on them to expect them to behave as well as would be required with children they do not know.

And, as some of you probably know, they are rotties. Gentle, intelligent, and impeccably behavioured rottweilers.

What a lovely post very heartwarming ff

I hope my DS is like that with my dog but he's getting his grey chin now so an old man lol

IAMP.. yeah the dog is very stressed when DP is around, i think it's cos DP is an arsehole rather than anything else, he teases the dog and i have to step in sometimes as DP teases but would be the first to get angry if the dog responded badly rather than in his usual put-up-with-anything friendly manner.

During the day when i'm here and supervising, the dog does come and say hello to DS. He does not move a muscle when DS cries, ect, but when DP is here, he does, as mentioned in my post.

I don't know. All i can say is that he is very much loved as a member of the family/pack whatever, and i haven't ever had a problem with him with my kids and i don't expect to.
DS1 mentioned the fact the dog is getting old now (don't know his true age but guessing it to be between 9 and 10) and i started thinking about when he dies
Scared and upset by it tbh (probably post pg hormones more than anything)