Dog-mad 4yo DD - teaching her how to be safe with dogs?

[CheeseStrawWars]

We don't have dogs, I'm looking for tips to help manage my DD. She adores dogs and will want to stroke any she sees.

So far we have established the ground rules:

• she is never to touch any dog unless she has checked with the owner if that is okay
• she must try not to make eye contact with the dog when she meets it as it will find that threatening
• she shouldn't hold her hand out to pat the dog until the dog has sniffed her to find out who she is, she should hold the back of her hand out, with fingers curled up, for the dog to sniff.
• Don't stroke it's head or reach over its eyes.

Does that all sound sensible/right? Anything else I should teach her? I have zero experience with dogs but she's a bit obsessed at the moment. We meet a lot of dogs on the school run...

This website has a good safety game to play www.safetyarounddogs.org.uk/

That game's brilliant, she'll love it! Thank you

Lots of good information here: www.liamjperkfoundation.org/about.html

Warning - the background to the website is a harrowing, but it doesn't scaremonger. It has lots of information about dog body language etc. so children can interact safely with dogs and no other parent has to suffer in the way this family have.

I have two dogs and imo not all owners pay proper attention to their dog's body language when interacting with small children. Some are complacent. As a parent it is a really good idea read up a bit as well so that you can monitor any interactions and calmly intervene if the dog shows sign of stress.

Thanks SpicyPear. That poor family. But what a useful and valuable website. Reading the dog stress signs, I'm sure I've seen at least one dog do that "shaking" thing after DD's stroked him. And I've definitely seen the "high tail" arousal thing - but to my untrained eye, if the tail's not between the legs I would've thought it was fine without reading that. I'll print off some of the stuff on there and go through it with DD tomorrow. You're right, at the back of my mind there is one owner in particular who insists her dog is fine to be stroked, but I'm looking at the dog thinking 'your animal is hating this'. It's good to read about the behaviour so I know what I'm looking for and I can just end the interaction.

My DD was like this, however that was a result of being in a dog-mad family. She was used to our dogs and it took a while to teach her that she must not approach dogs in the street/park.

Of course many dogs we meet are lovely and friendly and desperate to be adored, but she needed to learn that you ask the owner, you let the dog sniff/approach you and you never put your face to the dog's face.

I remember one holiday when she was 3 yo. As we were walking from the beach back to the car DD noticed a huge German Shepherd bounding along. Before I could stop her she ran over to him and threw her arms around him!! My legs were lead, the owner was in a similar position - everything went in slow motion. Thank god the dog just rolled over and was a complete softie! From that moment on I realised she needed to restrain her dog-love!!

She is now 9 and very sensible around dogs.