Evaluating a Dog's Relationship with your Children

Is the Relation with my Children Dangerous?
The only real thing that can become dangerous in the relation of a dog with children is the transmission of diseases. In order to avoid this, you have to educate your children and your dog and you will have to do this every time they are together.

Your children have to get used to washing their hands right after playing with the dog, especially before eating. You must not let the dog lick your children's faces. Children must not put the dog's ears or paws in their mouths.

Children should not eat from the dog's bowl or the other way around. If it does happen, however, the truth is that most probably nothing will happen, but it's better not to mix things. Dogs, as well as children, are sterile beings. Many of the things the children touch during the day are more infected than the actual animal.

It goes without saying that the dog must be totally vaccinated and free of parasites. Insurance companies' make appreciation statistics about the incidence of accidents which occur among children and animals with consequences of injury or death: dogs occupy the first place. The cause is almost always an inadequate behavior of the children in front of the animals that costs them their lives or health. Some of the famous animals, stars on television shows, are partly to blame because they have some human qualities attributed. This has led children to interpret the animals in a wrong way. Insurance companies, therefore, suggest that children start being around animals when they are three years old.

Of course, your dog might also scratch, push or bite your children, but that can also happen with other playmates. The chances of a trained dog biting a child are not very frequent; however, it is not impossible either.

First of all, all puppies will always be the children's friends. Only a negative experience can teach them the contrary. They might turn into their enemies because of the influence of a wrongly educated child who doesn't know how to handle dogs, or simply, a badly behaved or excessively mischievous child. Therefore, you should never buy your child an already trained dog, one that you don't know and that may have had a bad experience.

In any case, you have to bear in mind all the work that involves having a dog. Even if your children promise they will take good care of the dog, as a general rule, the tasks of higher responsibility such as vaccination or the night walks will have to be performed by the parents.