Are there any online cartoony-type resources for teaching young kids to be around dogs? Or any other tips?

[feesh]

Our dog is generally OK around kids, although a little excitable still. She did nip a toddler once, but said toddler did grab her in the face, encouraged by her mother, after my husband had asked her not to get any closer, and the mum was very apologetic and the kid was completely unfazed by it (I think it was more of an air-snap actually, because the toddler didn't even cry. My dog is pretty head-shy).

My best friend has a 3-year old little girl who is scared of our dog. As a result, I go to great lengths to keep them apart, gating my dog off when they visit, and turning down offers to go to the beach with them.

My best friend has seen how much calmer our dog is becoming now she is 12 months old, and also how much more obedient she is. She now wants to teach her daughter not to be scared of the dog (and dogs in general), and she wants us to be able to come with them to the beach etc.

I have been trying to teach the little girl the 'be a tree' method, which I picked up off an American dog forum. She is sort of getting it, but sometimes she still runs away from my dog, which is basically an invitation to play for my dog and it has resulted in tears on a couple of occasions! My dog can still be a little mouthy when she gets excited as well.

I just wondered if anyone has any tips on helping this little girl, and if there are any online resources I can show her to help her learn to 'be a tree'.

I am fully in control of all of their interactions, and I can drop my dog into a 'down' or recall her at any point with almost 100% success. I just need to build the little girl's confidence, and in turn make her a bit more successful at 'being a tree' so that my dog will completely and utterly ignore her.

The ones that are very well known are the Dr Sophia Yin ones - here. They are excellent, simple posters that teach children how to behave round dogs and how to understand basic dog body language.

My DSS best friend is PETRIFIED of dogs. Ours is now 8 months and it's taken this long for best friend to come into our living room instead of just heading into the playroom.

Alot of it is just time getting used to it, but what has helped is

-getting dog into a sit or down so that he could feed him treats without dog being too jumpy.
-have a pointless dog trick taught, breaks the ice so to speak, high five is apparently hilarious round here!
-finding out which bit about dogs is scary to the child (for this particular little it it was barking, he thought it sounded like the dog was angry) and spend a bit of time chatting about it. I explained dogs bark for all different reasons, like they might want a wee, or a piece of cheese from the fridge!

Use a bit of humour, and take it really slow. The above sounds like I was on a specific mission, I wasnt, it just sort of progressed over the months!! Whilst he's still scared of dogs it's not so crippling for him to walk past the dog who guards his door on the school run anymore! hth

Thanks Scuttle - those posters are great, but it's a bit much for a 3 year old to take in. I was thinking more of something like a YouTube video with really, really simple language or a cartoon.

Inthepotty, thanks - that's encouraging. She is quite delighted when I run my dog through a few tricks, but she isn't ready yet to give the dog any treats or ask her to do a trick.

I am wondering if, once her confidence has improved more, we help her to teach the dog a brand new trick (I can subtly intervene with a bit of pre-training and the clicker), so it becomes something the little girl has achieved almost by herself and it can be her special trick which she can show her Mum.