Book Review: Living with Kids and Dogs … without Losing Your Mind
Title: Living with Kids and Dogs … without Losing Your Mind
Author: Colleen Pelar
Summary: Practical help for that moment when you realize that you can’t just let them “work it out.”
If you’ve ever had your dog do something to your child that scared you, or had your child do something to your dog that made you wonder about a cruel streak, or both, this book is for you. Paraphrasing the author, most dog books say, “control your kid!” and most parenting books say, “control your dog!” In reality, “good kids and good dogs can get in trouble because of miscommunication” – Fluffy may well be doing what she was bred to do, and Johnny is just being age-appropriate, but it’s our job as parents to form a relationship, and use management and training techniques to help these two mesh safely, and this book can tell you how. “Kids rarely try to bother the dog; they just act like kids.”
This book is laid out in a very parent-friendly way. She begins with an overview of this topic, and then has four chapters focusing on key topics: choosing the right dog, preventing bites, identifying serious behavior issues, and the equipment you need to make life easier. After that, she offers four chapters of age-appropriate tips for helping your kids to interact with your dog: babies and toddlers, preschoolers, elementary schoolers, and teens. Finally, she ends with a chapter about saying good-bye – a topic all pet owners dread, but she addresses it with compassion and honesty.
Finally, as a courtesy to tired parents, she ends each chapter with a short list of tips, just in case you don’t have the time to read the whole book, but need results now. All in all, this is a well-crafted tool, and you are bound to find some practical tips if you are seeing some friction between your kids and your pets.
Favorite Tips:
- Food: As with people, certain foods can increase bad behavior. She recommends food endorsed by Whole Dog Journal
- Supervision: Don’t leave your child unsupervised with your dog. Definitely do not allow children to go into a room with the dog and close the door. When can you leave a dog unsupervised?
- Signs: Learn to read your dog’s signs of stress and then stop what your child is doing to cause it.
- What dogs enjoy: You must teach your child what dogs do and don’t enjoy, and to redirect them accordingly. Example: “Instead of pulling on Abby’s collar, use your happy voice to call Abby.”
- Timeouts: Both doggie and child may need a timeout for inappropriate behaviors. Remember that if the dog is getting a time away, you go with the child and leave the dog alone. If you just send the child away, but you stay, now the dog just learns how to get “alone time” with you.
- Attention-Getting Habits: When your dog does something to ask for attention, have the dog do a few obedience exercises before you grant the attention.
Training tips/Games:
- Freeze Dance: Pretend to be the dog while your kids dance crazily around. When you get close to them, teach them to freeze in the “Be a Tree” position [link]. When you move away, they can unfreeze.
- Trades: When the dog gets something, teach the child to offer a treat in trade for it. Never teach or allow the child to take it forcibly from the dog.
- Go to Bed: Buy a fuzzy bath mat for every room, and train your dog to go lay down there by giving him treats when he wanders on to it. After he hangs out on the mat, you can add the cue word.
- Peanut Butter Kisses: Put a bit of peanut butter on the back of the child’s hand (held in a fist) and have the child put her hand out to the dog, saying “kisses” before she puts it out. Doggie will learn to gently lick a child’s closed fist when it’s extended.
- Hide and Seek: Have the dog stay while the child hides a toy, treat or the dog’s food bowl, then the child can release the dog to find the food. “Hansel & Gretel” Variation: have the child make a trail of kibble or treats and then release the dog.
Other recommended books: Take a Bow… Wow!, Take a Bow 2, The How of Bow Wow, all by Virginia Broitman and Sherri Lippman