Schnauzers of Taylor loves placing puppies in homes with children. We also realize that it is our job to give you resources to learn how to mesh children and puppies for a happy home. We will create a contract that will require you to sign that you have listened and read our children and puppy training.
Taken from Baxter and Bella's Free Podcast.
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I want to make sure that, you know everybody's educated on how kids should or should not interact with a dog, And it was, could prevent a lot of accidents, a lot of misbehavior, a lot of tears. So let's talk about kids and puppies today because kids love puppies and puppies honestly love kids, but sometimes for different reasons. So sometimes I think kids, I think that these little puppies are maybe stuffed animals or toys, and they just want to love them and squeeze them. And so they might not know exactly how to interact with that puppy to show that puppy exactly how they're feeling. The puppy could be getting some mixed messages. You know that kid comes over and picks up the puppy and gives it a big hug. That's not exactly going to be interpreted as something nice to the puppy, but the kid might be thinking they're doing something nice to the puppy in the puppies. Yeah, I think in something a little different. And then similarly, puppies say, you know, they see kids and they're exciting and their voices their high and you like to run around. And the puppy thinks this is so fun. I love kids. Let's chase, Let's bite, let's play And then the kids are thinking, uh, this puppy is not so fun, so it can be done. Kids can live successfully with puppies and puppies can learn to love to live with Children, but there's some rules that are involved. And so that's what I want to talk about today. All right, so Rule Number one is Let's teach our kids that puppies don't like hugs, and this is a dog thing. In general, hugging a dog is very threatening. And so I just teach my kids. Let's not hug the dog here some other ways that we can interact with the dog if it's, you know, that's something that we want to do so similarly to that is, instead of approaching a dog and squeezing them around the neck. A lot of times kids will go up to a dog and pat them on the head and patting on top of the head or even reaching that motion of reaching over the dog's head is threatening to them, and they don't appreciate it. So let's teach our kids to pet the puppy underneath their mouth almost where their neck is. They could just give a little scratch. There they love having under their color, scratched or just right under their chin. Just kind of give him a little rub right there that's much less threatening. Especially the child comes at the dog with an open palm face upward. The puppy can smell their hand in their palm and then get that nice little chin scratch. And that's much nicer than having the child reach over the puppy's head and try to pat on the head and patting. And general puppies don't just love. But I mean, think of it if somebody came up to you and just kept patting you. It's kind of annoying sometimes, you know? You know. Okay, stop touching me. Stop patting me. Rubbing is much softer. Okay? Another tip to tell kids is to stand sideways when a dog approaches them or when they approach a dog. So instead of coming out of dog straight on, then to walk maybe around out around the dog or stand sideways, it's much less threatening or if they want that puppy to come to them if they were to turn sideways and even crouch down and get lower, that puppy is more likely to come to them than if they're running toward the puppy. It's very easy for Children to think. I'm gonna run up that puppy and go say hi. And then they wonder why the puppy turns and runs the other direction. So teach our Children. If you want a puppy to come to you than to stand sideways, you make yourself a little bit smaller. Children don't have that problem. They're already pretty small, but standing sideways. Just even the act of turning their body is more inviting to a dog. All right, this is a big one. The next one is no wrestling, and this is really hard, especially if you have little boys in your home. They just want to get down on the floor of that puppy and have a wrestling match. The problem comes when the child realizes that the dog uses its mouth to play, so the puppy might be like, Yes, this is super fun. Let's wrestle. But that dog is going to use its mouth and that means teeth contact on your child, and it doesn't usually end up in a pretty scenario. So let's just teach our kids. We don't wrestle with the puppy. That's not an appropriate way to play with them. And then we can teach them some appropriate games to play. One of my favorites to teach Children is hide and go seek. So have your child get a couple treats and maybe a squeaky toy. Then you hold the puppy, have your child run and hide behind a chair, squeak the toy and then you release the puppy. And when the puppy finds the child, the child can give them a treat, and then they can take off and hide somewhere else. It's a great game, very appropriate. Teaches lots of good things. Or, as for resource guardian, this is an important topic when it comes to kids and puppies. So I have a few rules about this. When your puppy is playing with a toy, I tell my kids, you cannot go over and take the toy away from the puppy. Um, don't pull something from their mouth. Don't force that toy out of their mouth. We want to respect the puppy when he has his toys, and he's wanting to play with, Um, Now there are ways that we can teach the puppy to release the toy on cue on, you know, when we asked for something, we like the puppy to give it back, and the best way to do this is to teach your kids to always trade up. So say, Hey, if you want to go get a toy from that puppy, then make sure you take them a different toy that they really like and possibly a little treat to go with it so they can show the puppy, the treat or the food. That's a drop it. The puppy releases the toy, they get the food, and then they can swap it out for a different toy. Or even sometimes I just like to give that toy right back and teach that to your Children. They'll really understand that if you put it into their terms, say, you know, if you had a friend come over and they were playing and they always kept taking your toy away and never giving you anything for it, how would you feel? And most Children can recognize I wouldn't like that. That wouldn't be very fun. And it's the same thing for our puppies of your child running up to the puppy and teasing him. We're trying to take that toy away, and then taking off that puppy is not going to like that child so much. So teach them that they want the puppy toe like them, that these air kind of the rules that the puppy has a toy. We let them have their toy. If you want that toy, then we need to trade them up. So give them a more valuable toy or something they like better. And a lot of times that includes adding some food into the picture because puppies love food, so never again force that toy from their mouth. Have the puppy drop. It will release it to you for something better. Okay, Another rule I teach my Children with puppies is to never follow a pulling puppy. So if your child has the puppy on a leash, and I would be really careful about how old your child is before you let them hold the leash, I just generally tell my kids that that's my job and That's pretty easy for them to follow. But if your child old enough, let's say six or older and they want to take the puppy out, you know, on a little short walk. Or it may be to their party spot. I just teach them that they have to run with the puppy. They have to keep a nice J shape. So if your child old enough to know what the letter J is and what the shape of J is, and they can keep that leash in a nice J shape, and they're probably old enough to be able to hold that leash and keep that J shape with your puppy. And I just have that simple rule that we don't follow a pulling puppy. So if the puppy pools, we stop as soon as that Jay is back in the leash, then we can go. If the puppy pools, we stop. We wait for the J to come back in the leash, and we can go. But we never, ever follow a pulling puppy. We don't want your puppy to learn that when the child has the least, that puppy can just run wherever he wants and drag your child around. That's not a good scenario, all right, We also teach our Children to ignore whining or crying. And this is really hard, because if you have a young puppy in a crate and let's see your create training for the first week and there's going to be a little bit of crying, a little bit of whining, most kids will run right over to the crates. Oh, poor puppy. And they give that really soothing, you know, sound commentary to the puppy, and they give attention. So they're looking at the puppy there, right next to the puppy, and this only creates a bigger problem. Our puppy will keep crying and keep whining in the crate. So it's really important to teach kids with a brand new puppy that it's okay. They're in their creator having quiet time. They might throw a little bit of fit a little bit of a fit and go ahead and talk your child through that and say, You know what? He's just gonna quiet down in a few minutes. Let's just let him have a quiet time. Right now. It's the puppies, naptime or whatever you need to say. Maybe even just put a blanket over the crate so your child knows to leave the puppy alone at that time. But again, they don't know that looking at the puppies attention. So we need to educate them on Hey, the more attention you give to the puppy. He's not going to be quiet, so we really need to just go away. Let's go do something else while the puppy takes a nap, and then we'll come back and play them when he's ready to get up. Along with that, when your puppies in the crate, I always teach my Children that they're not allowed to pull the puppy from a sleeping position or even from the crate. So if my puppies in his crate, it is not my child job to pull that puppy out. In fact, they're not allowed to do it, so the puppy must come out of the crate on his own. That's a really good rules, because the crate becomes a safe spot for your puppy, especially if you have kids that are very hands on. Sometimes those puppies just need a break. So I teach my Children that when the puppy goes in the great, that's his time out. He gets to go in there and he gets to be by himself, and he knows that we're not allowed to bother him. It's very important that we just tell our kids, you know, when he's ready to come out, we'll have them come out and I'll help you with that. So just come find me or come get me if you're ready to get the puppy out and we'll see if if he's awake and ready to play. But again, teach them to respect that quiet time and that the dog chooses to go in the crate. That's his choice, and we're you know, they're not allowed to get him out of that crate, All right, So with kids and other dogs, let's say that you're out with your kids. This is a very common occurrence in the summer. Like I was just saying, We're up the canyon with my kids on a hike. Lots of dogs, lots of different owners up there. It's very important that we educate our Children toe, ask others to pet their dog before the child just walks right up to the dock. So dog body language, you know Children are experts in it. And even if a dog is wagging their tell, it doesn't necessarily mean that that dog is happy. We're friendly to see your child. That could be a sign, depending on how high or low that tell us. Maybe some anxious nothing that dog. So I always tell my kids, If you want to pet a dog that you see, please ask first, do not just walk right up to the dog and try to pet it. So that's just good manners as well. Because as you're out and about with your kids this summer, I guarantee you're gonna see some pretty cute dogs. And lots of kids just want to go right up to them and pet them. But just tell them to ask first. Another thing about this is, as I mentioned earlier, I'm a service dog trainer, and it's really important that some of these dogs are working and their owner might not allow your child to pet them. So even educating your child on if you see a dog in a vest, you know they might be a service dog. They might be working for someone right now, and it's really important, not to interrupt them while they're trying to do their job. And so it's not a negative thing. I know a lot of times I'll get clients that are training their own service dogs, and they'll say, You know, it's really hard for me to say No, please don't pet my dog and I feel mean doing it. But if we educate people on, it's not that you're being mean. The dog is simply working in. You're trying not to distract them. Then people don't necessarily feel bad when you ask them, Please don't pet my dog. So it's just a good thing to teach our Children to always ask first. The other thing is that it's a safety thing because our, you know, we don't always know how friendly these other dogs are. And the last thing you'd want is your child to run up and try to pet a dog that doesn't appreciate Children so much. And then a bite comes or something like that, so nobody wants to be put in that situation. So let's just teach our Children that whenever they see a dog that they'd like to go pet, they need to ask you if that's OK, and then they need to go ask that person if they can pet their dog before they approach a strange duck. All right, a really good thing to teach your Children to do with your puppy are deeply impulse control games. So have your Children take a handful of their food every morning before breakfast and hold it out for the puppy. As soon as the puppy leaves their hand alone, they're allowed to grab a little piece of kibble and feed it to the dock. And then they close their hand again and they play again. Lots of kids love these games. If you're a member of my program, head over to the Pause Fit section. I have six games in there that are really simple, fast games that you can play with a puppy on a daily basis. And they're great ones to get your kid interacting with a puppy, but in an appropriate way. And at the same time, your puppy is learning patients. So that's a win win for both sides of the equation. All right, this one. My daughter came up with a disaster. Hey, what should we tell people about puppies today? What do they need to know? You know you're a kid, and what do you need to know about dogs? And, she said, Tell them to not put their face right in their puppy space. This is a great one. It's It's very threatening for you to take your head and your face and put it right into your puppy's face. It's very threatening. They want to move away from you and often this result in a dog bite. So teach your Children not to just get right in their space, give them some space. In fact, what I like to do is teach my Children to have the puppies come to them. So let's say they want to interact with a puppy. I just say, Hey, why don't you sit down in squeaky toy and see if the puppy is wanting to come up to you that way because we don't have a common language. They're not. You know, dogs don't speak English. We don't speak dog by having that puppy come up to you. You know that that puppy is willing to come and see that child and play instead of forcing that interaction to happen. All right, next is, don't pick the puppy up, so this is a very quick way of having a puppy decide that they don't like a certain child. If there's a child in your family that's always picking the puppy up and hauling them around, I guarantee that puppy will start to avoid that child. So I just teach my Children that puppies have their own legs. They get to walk where they wanna walk. If you want to go somewhere the puppy, then we want to entice the puppy to come with you by the using their favorite toy. Or maybe we have some treats in our pocket, and we get that puppy to come with us in a cooperative way. Not in a forceful way. So puppies don't love little kids to pick them up. Because kids are not as sturdy as adults, you know, they might get dropped. There's a little bit of no shaking going on while they're bouncing around, trying to walk somewhere. So I just tell kids the rules are we don't pick up. The puppy has a parent. Another thing that you can do to help your Children interactive puppies would be to learn stress signals in Doc's. So if your puppy is tucking their tell or their ears are flat back or they're a cowering down, lowering their body stance if they're growling, Um, now there are a couple different growls. There's a playgirl. So if your plane you know a little bit of gentle tug with your puppy and they're growing or you see two puppies playing together and they're growing, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But the other brow would be a warning girl. So if your child goes to approach your puppy and they let out this little low rumble or a little growl, that's a worrying saying, Hey, don't come any closer. So let's teach our Children these. The stress signals that are dogs do give off if the the dog is yawning, that's another one. If they're licking excessively or licking, their lips are turning their heads. They're trying to relieve themselves from for some stress. So teaching our Children to look for these signals is a really important thing, getting kids and dogs to get along and again. If you're a member of my program, Baxter and Bella dot com, then I have, ah, class that I recently talked on dog body language. You're welcome to head over to the live canine coaching page of Members Only area and check that out. It's a good thing to learn. I've included some images and some pictures there that you can see and really learn what a dog is trying to tell you through their body language. All right, you guys. So that's just a few things to be aware of when you have puppies and kids living in the same household. Most of all, I want you guys to enjoy the experience of having a puppy in your home. It is a wonderful experience. It can be wonderful even with kids in the home. I know sometimes it does get a little overwhelming, trying to manage everyone and keeping the puppy. You know where he needs to be and keeping your kids where they need to be, especially depending on the ages of your Children having older Children. I think if your youngest was six or older, that's an ideal time to get a puppy, because everyone is old enough to be ableto handle themselves and to give the dog instructions and to understand stress signals and what those look like if you have Children that are younger in your home, it's okay. Just realize that you're responsible for managing that situation. And I always, always, always watch my puppy and kids 100% of the time when they're together. But it is so fun to have a puppy join your home. So I hope you're enjoying the experience. If you're about to get a puppy, you're in for a real treat. Just make sure that some of these rules and tips and guidelines are followed to make a positive experience for everyone. You guys have an awesome week happy training, and I will talk to you next week. If you have a question about anything you've heard on this podcast or any other puppy training questions, visit my sight. Baxter and Bella dot com to contact me