Friendly towards children

Zinja

How does everyone socialize their puppies with children when they don't have children?

I am will be proposing to my girlfriend and start a family with her. If we have children, how will I know the dog will be good with kids?

I trust my Akita whole wholeheartedly with children. Ninja grew up with my siblings and I.

My overall goal is to be a part of Delta Society and have the dog visit patients, but it all depends on the dog's personality.

shibamistress

I'm not really the best person to answer, as I have no kids and haven't gone out of my way to socialize my dogs with them as they have almost no contact with them. That said, I did want to make sure my (very large) Akita wouldn't be scared of children if we saw them while walking. So I found a nice park where there was soccer practice on Saturday mornings, and I took him there every Saturday. There were kids of all ages, and we mostly just walked back and forth, so he wasn't so scared of running and shrieking children (because at first it was scary for him, and frankly, kind of for me too ) After a bit, if parents approached with their kids to see the pup, I let kids touch him or give him treats. I only did it when he was fairly small and not threatening looking, though. (he's as sweet as can be, but you know how people are afraid of big dogs).

So I'd suggest finding places you can walk the dog where there are kids (parks are good) and get the dog used to kids that way. Inviting families with kids over might not be a bad idea either.

tjbart17

Are you talking about getting another dog and training it? To be a service dog? Or to be a therapy dog?

I'm not sure where you are located, in the US?

I think there needs to be some clarification about what a service dog is, and their rights, vs. what a therapy dog is, and their lack of privileges.

A service dog, by the ADA definition, is not owner handled. You may own your dog, but the dog works with someone else, not you. Unless you have a qualifying ADA need. I don't want to make you say whether or not you do. This dog has certain rights, even during training to go anywhere and do anything. They can go to public places: restaurants, movies, stores, etc.

A therapy dog is owner handled. This dog really only needs their CGC to work, and will work alongside their owner, ie going to visit hospitals, retirement communities, libraries, etc. This dog is NOT a service dog, and does not have the right to go to public places.

So my question to you is are you planning on training a therapy dog or a service dog? I pose this question because it will affect your options for socialization.

BradA1878

Congrats on the upcoming proposal! Good luck! )

Puppy class. That's haw we socialize ours with kids. Thee is always a kid at our puppy class.

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tjbart17

You had kids in your puppy class? Unfortunately we didn't. That would have been great. I took Koda to playgrounds. Restaurants were always good, like pizza places, to meet kids as well. I like more noisy type of places so he could get used to kids screaming and being loud.

Zinja

Just a therapy dog to make children feel happy during their recovery. I work in a hospital and I always see the joy in patient's faces when a dog comes in the room.

Also, walking around in large crowds where children may pet the dog without asking.

So slowly introduce them to areas with high stress areas then have kids little by little handle them?

edit: Brad, I know Loa got her CGC about a year ago and therapy training was a possibility... have you or Jen continued her training?

tjbart17

I started Koda off with going to a park with a play structure. We sat 100 ft. away from the structure. He could hear them, but it was almost like white noise in the background. We did that a couple of times, then began moving in closer to where the children were playing until we were amongst the kids and all their noises.

Koda is a bit different. He's a service dog, so he can go more places. I could take him in Starbucks, Safeway, whatever. It gave us opportunities to be around children without flooding him with children. I wouldn't flood the dog with lots of kiddie hands all over him.

shishiinu

My kids know how to handle dogs so what I did with taro and koyuki is I took them to my son's school a few times a week so the dogs can get used to rowdy kids. Its funny cause taro will go right up to them and lick the leftover lunch off their face no matter how little or big the kid is. Koyuki is super gental, she will see a little baby and really carefully go up and lay down for the baby. For some reason though taro has been a little ornery lately and is not really cool with bigger kids touching him. But he is super good with my kids, especially one of my daughters.

sukoshi_mom

Sukoshi was socialized with children at the local park, which is a multi-use park (soccer, Little League, Lecross, play areas, and dog park.) I gradually introduced her to children in the various locations. Our dog park rules specify that children must be at least 5 years old to be in the park and must be accompanied by responsible adult(s). Shibas are children magnets -- I think it's something about the curly tails. Anyhow, Sukoshi is very good with children and I am always near her when she is interacting with a child.

tsukitsune

I just wrote a blog post about this!

I don't have kids, I have two friends with small kids that I "use" if they visit.

I realized that Petsmart was actually so children-rich that we used to go there only to allow kids to pet our dogs. Not all our dogs, but the younger still learning ones. I think it helped.
The two dogs I raised are solid with kids!

I think just allowing people to come up to you to interact with your dog goes a long way in conditioning that hands don't always do the same thing, but its a good thing to let them touch you.

Heidi

Well, I don't know about other people, but our neighbourhood is full of kids. I can't go for a walk without kids stopping me to pet my dogs. Playgrounds are great, and of course, if you know what the bell times at a local school are, you can catch swarms of kids as they come out. Swarms are something to work up to, though. Test the waters before you jump in.

Of course, I have three kids ages five and under, so this really isn't a challenge for me. Of course, you still have to socialize your dogs to kids who don't actually know how to handle dogs. For instance, we have relatives with kids who scream every single time they see a dog. It doesn't matter what the dog is doing or how many times they've seen that dog already, they just scream bloody murder if the dog walks in the room. Obviously, this is strange behaviour that can easily upset the uninitiated dog, so meeting a wide variety of children is really important. This isn't hard for us, either, though, because we know lots of other kids, too, and the dogs come with us to the park all the time. We go to places where there are trails and fields and playgrounds, so we will walk for a while, stop to play, keep walking, maybe stop and run around the field, and so on.

I'd like Sosuke to be a therapy dog, too. He's not old enough yet, but I think he'll be good at it. Rakka's pretty good with kids, but she wouldn't make a good therapy dog because she doesn't always want strangers touching her. Sometimes she can't get enough affection and sometimes she doesn't want to be touched at all.

tjbart17

A good test is whether or not your dog will "give their back" to a stranger and allow them to be touched without being able to watch the person. The stranger should go for face and body during test. If your dog is comfortable with that, then they will probably deal with most anything.

Koda has been taught to go up to people, turn around, and sit with his back to them, right in front of them. Kids/People are allowed to pet him anywhere and he will not react. Good boy Koda!

Zinja

Had anyone had any bad experiences with someone petting their dog?

Losech

Bad experiences? Yes, but never a bite. Close to it a couple times though.

Conker doesn't like strangers, especially big tall people, men and noisy rambunctious kids. He is fine with calmer people, most women and some kids who stay quiet and move slowly. The bad experiences have happened when I've told people not to pet Conker but they tried anyways, some even grabbed the leash or him. I can be a very mean person when this happens, which it hasn't in a very long time now. Petting on-leash is not allowed anymore unless Conker wants it, which is rare.

Conker hadn't really been exposed to many kids before I moved back home to Oregon. I told my youngest brother (8 or 9, can't remember) how to properly greet Conker and since he followed my instructions Conker was fine with him. Teddy is now Conker's second favorite person. Teddy is quite a popular kid and always had friends over and every one of them got the exact same lecture.
If Conker moved away or tried to escape, they were to leave him alone. Don't try to pet his head, don't pull on him, don't be loud around him. Those are the basic rules. Some of Teddy's friends Conker likes and others not so much. The kids he likes are the ones who did what I told them and continue to do that. The kids he doesn't are the ones who try to pet his head or chase after him if he doesn't want to be touched.

Kids on the street are not allowed to pet Conker but they can pet Juneau and Sasha who grew up with a bunch of kids and love everybody. At the dog park Conker is completely different and will let most people pet him, my guess is since he if off-leash and can escape if he feels the need.

shibamistress

I'm lucky I've never had a bad experience, but I also don't let strangers near the dogs. Oskar is too big and he jumps. Bel is terrified of people she doesn't know (and some she does). Toby will tolerate being touched by anyone but is afraid of kids, so we avoid them.

I had a scary experience once with my GSD that turned out ok. We were walking in the park, and a large man came running up to us and grabbed kai around the neck and squeezed him into a huge hug. He was a young man with Down's Syndrome and was excited to tell me his aunt had a German Shepherd too. I was so afraid Kai would bite, as he was clearly very startled by this, but he got very still and gentle, and just let the guy squeeze him, and I tried to explain how it was bad to grab strange dogs. Kai seemed to know that the guy meant no harm. It scared me though--and I know that most dogs would not have tolerated that. As a side note to it, though, I occasionally saw the young man later on walks and he would say to me "I'm not supposed to grab strange dogs, right? I have to ask to pet them first, right?" So I guess he remembered that thankfully.

WhoBitMe

My Border Collie was raised with my siblings around, so she was used to kids. But in the last few years she has changed a bit since there aren't any young children around anymore, so she often takes awhile to warm up to children she doesn't know...sometimes. Then again, she has surprised me and been perfectly fine with random children. But I can usually pick up on her cues now in situations so I know if I need to avoid any children on the street or not when walking.

I think her worst experience with children was actually last year. I had a cousin's daughter visiting my home and my Border Collie was giving very clear warning signs that she wanted the girl to leave her alone, but the kid kept trying to touch and poke her (the dog). After a few times asking my cousin's daughter "Please don't touch the dog; she doesn't want you to touch her right now and she might try to bite if you keep it up," I just took my dog downstairs and we hung out in the basement away from the little girl (little as in...5 or 6; I forget which). The experience hasn't seemed to have had any negative effects, though.

tjbart17

With the Kais, Koda and Mei, no. Mei doesn't necessarily like people getting near her so I try and just keep people at a distance. But she would never do anything. She just looks at me like "These peasants are touching me again. Please get them away." Mei did really like the pet fair/fundraiser. Everyone gave her treats and attention, and she whored it out all day.

Koda wore a vest that said pet me for his first year of life. He had no choice. But he's pretty receptive to people. He just sits down and takes it. He's VERY tolerant.

shishiinu

Lmfao at mei!!!