This page is formatted to be easily printed.

Puppies & Infants - Is It Ever Safe?

Teaching a puppy, reprogramming a juvenile or adult dog to accept human control and establishing the rules of the family for a new canine member are time-consuming jobs. The challenge is even greater if the family includes and infant or young children. If we want to own a dog and have children, or have a dog who can interact safely with any young child, we must teach the dog how to behave around them.

Consider the age of the puppy: you cannot expect a 2, 3, or even 5 month old puppy to be able to be trained enough to be baby/toddler safe. Only an older puppy - one 6 months or older who has finished teething - can be expected to understand and be able to be taught how to safely to live in a household with babies and young children. Also consider the age of your children: are they old enough to understand and obey your rules about the dog or puppy? For most children, this is around six years old. Many parents think "I want the puppy to grow up with my children," not realizing that this can still happen with an older puppy, and will be a much better and safer experience for everyone, for the following reasons:

Behavior & Play
Puppies cannot be expected to tolerate the behavior of babies and toddlers, without jumping on them and nipping. After all, this is how canine babies play with their canine brothers and sisters - by jumping on each other and grabbing with their teeth. Puppies must be old enough to be able to be taught that human children are not their littermates. If this isn't taught, a growing puppy's behavior will become increasingly rough, and the odds increase that a small child will be seriously hurt during play.

Never allow your child to use hands, fingers, feet, or clothing for play. This encourages attack games that could lead to aggressive behavior. The animal will begin to treat them like any other toy, and your child could be scratched or bitten.

Supervision & Training
Puppies and babies have unsophisticated communication skills with their own species, and non-existent skills with another species. BOTH need constant supervision and education. Both need environments protected from their innocence and impulses. You cannot blame a puppy for biting a baby; it simply does not know any better yet. Young children require undivided attention, as do young puppies. To do both at once is nearly impossible, and is an accident waiting to happen.

Remember, an animal is a strange object to an infant, and an infant is new to the animal. The two should be introduced to each other for periods of time, and very gradually. NEVER them alone together until you are sure that the ground rules have been established, and you are confident that one will not harm the other.

Children must learn not to pull tails, ears, or poke at the animals. Also, most animals are afraid of loud noises, and will retreat if approached quickly. Toddlers seem to love to run after animals, which only makes the animal run the other way. To an animal, even a small child can look like a giant, and a normally gentle pet may resort to scratching or biting to protect himself when frightened.

Teething & Food
Puppy teething usually lasts until 4-5 months of age. As with babies, teething is painful to puppies. Chewing is natural and helps to relieve the pain, and puppies will chew on anything they can get their mouth on, including small hands, fingers - especially as those things often smell like the delicious food they were just holding!

Speaking of food, be sure your children do not try to take food away from the animal or put their hands in the pet's food bowl. Some animals perceive this as a threat to their food and react aggressively. You'll need to test the dog (best to have a trainer help with this!), and carefully evaluate the dog's reaction to your children while the dog is eating.

Raising children and dogs requires skill if it's to be done well. We do not come magically prepared for raising children, we have to learn and be prepared, and it's the same for raising a dog.

Written by Janice Leesworth, reprinted here with permission.

If you find this program helpful, please make a donation to the Pasadena Humane Society. You can donate online or mail a check made out to PHS to:

BEST Training
Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA
361 S. Raymond Ave
Pasadena, CA 91105