bouncy dog - how do you judge what age children to home with

[miacis]

I'm wondering how rescues decide what age of DC are suitable to home a dog with?

How do you assess bounciness iyswim and what is the scale to match with a family? I suppose different rescues cold deem different levels of bounciness are appropriate with different ages of children.

If a dog ran to children and jumped all over them when they first met them would this be deemed to be bouncy? If so, what age children would you home such a dog with? (med sized dog 22tts)

I know slightly odd question but I'm interested in how and why rescues say suitable for families with children aged X and over. It seems really common.

it's a really good question. I don't know the answer but I will read this thread with interest! It does seem to vary rescue to rescue though

intresting as our dog is bouncy with visitors BUT never jumped at kids :)

I wouldn't say that bounciness per se is the most important factor. Many rescues will have a blanket policy of not adopting to families with children under a certain age (often five). Others are more flexible, but it depends very much on whether they are all breed rescues, or single breed rescues and if so what the breed is. To give an example, say you had two small children and you were considering adopting a BC. I would probably recommend that you don't (unless I knew you were collie-savvy) as there's a high likelihood of the collies "herding" the children and this can include nipping, which is what they do with sheep. People then often (wrongly) think the dog is biting and don't like the children being herded and the dogs end up in rescue. Dog may not be bouncy at all.

In the example I quoted above, I would also consider the dog awareness and experience of the parents/responsible adults in the household. How likely are they to understand the requirements of the breed/dog? How likely are they to regularly exercise, invest time in training and ensure both dogs and children are given clear boundaries? You also need to consider the size of both the child and the dog - a Yorkie which is bouncy is generally going to have less of an impact than a Lab which can be like miniature cannon balls!

A rescue will also consider if the home has the space/wherewithal to physically separate the dog and the child/ren e.g. by stair gates etc. or if it is all open plan. The age of the dog, character, trainability, previous experience with children will all also be factors.

We've got greyhounds so most of my experience is with them but I know people who do matching with other breeds. The dog's temperament is probably the single most important thing - jumping up is a behaviour that can be altered relatively easily by training, but a dog that is nervous around children or dislikes the noise, sudden movements etc will never be suitable no matter how good their manners. Does that make sense?

@scuttle - that makes perfect sense. Thanks so much.

We recently had a rescue adoption break down and we had to return the dog. This has been an awful experience and I'm still trying to work out exactly what went wrong. I'm mostly blaming myself here.

The dog was glorious with not a bad bone in her body but with hindsight she was probably too bouncy for us. When we first met her she ran to my DD (8) and jumped all over her when she was sat on a sofa. My DD was fine despite her being a reasonably big dog (22 inch tts lurcher). Respect to her. I was a little surprised but we went ahead - you could tell she was a lovely dog. She had lived with kids before and clearly adored them. But perhaps a little too much - if that makes sense. My DD was fine - but some of her friends were terrified when she did the same to them. And I would have been very wary of her being around younger children, in the park say, as she would easily have knocked them over. This was not why the adoption broke down though - we had problems introducing her to our cat.

Anyway we'd hope to try to adopt again at some point and we all love whippet/lurcher/greyhound types. So I'm just wondering what bouncy means in practice for the matching process. Part of me thinks it's just me. I suppose one person's bouncy dog is just playful to another. And as you say this is trainable - which we would have done.