Attention all parents of children and dogs!
What you need to know about bite prevention
In a perfect world:
All children would be taught to respect a dog’s space and never approach a dog without asking their parent and then the dog’s owner (if there is one present).
All dogs would be temperamentally sound, calm and stable around children, letting them into their personal space to poke and prod without fear or defensiveness.
The first ideal is what dog owners would wish for. The second is what parents of small children would hope for.
The fact is that neither one of these ideal situations is often the case in the REAL world. Most parents don’t take the time to educate their children in respecting animals and not approaching them at all or at least approaching them intelligently. And most dog owners don’t realize the importance of properly socializing their puppies to become well-adjusted, confident dogs who do not fear new environments, situations or people. The end result is that a lot of children are bitten by dogs.
Society currently deals with bite prevention by talking to the kids in school for a half-hour each year (if they are lucky) on how not to get bitten, and by locking up (or euthanizing) “dangerous” dogs. This is a lot like trying to deal with crime prevention by teaching victims how not to get shot in a hold up, and locking bank robbers away in the penitentiary. It’s not going to save the people who have already been shot, and it doesn’t prevent the human race from pumping out more new bank robbers every year. This is what I want to address: The new bank robbers. But, since this is an article about dog training, we’re going to talk about potential biting dogs.
Humans and dogs are driven by consequences. Good, law abiding people do not suddenly wake up one morning and say “gee, I think I’ll go rob a bank today.” Bank robbers learn and develop their skills, starting as children, stealing candy and gum from the corner store. Somehow, they got away with it (where were their parents?) So the child learns a lesson: “The consequence for stealing something, rather than paying for it, is that I get the candy, and I get to keep my money.” The child is beginning to develop a reward history for thievery. As the child gets older and better at stealing, he moves up to bigger targets- robbing the convenience store or an individual. They learn they can supplement their income through stealing and robbing (a rewarding consequence.) In some cases, they support themselves solely from theft of one sort or another. Even short term punishment can be a benefit if the person learns better skills from other inmates (and they do!) or forms affiliations from others who also like to steal (and they do!) This goes on until, as an adult, this human becomes a menace to society— someone who must be locked up away from others to prevent harm to the innocent masses.
The biting dog does not wake up one morning and think “gee, I think I’ll put a child in the hospital today.” No, she starts out at 8 weeks of age with the new owners. Like the child, hers is a blank slate. If she doesn’t experience positive interactions with SAFE, non-threatening children, or worse, is allowed to be subjected to groping, hurtful “attack children,” she will develop a fear or perhaps a strong dislike for children. Because she either doesn’t know what children are (never having been exposed to them during the critical period of socialization) and thinks they could harm her, or she KNOWS they are evil and she is SURE they will harm her (having been allowed to have a previous frightening consequence of being approached by children). Where were her “parents” during this critical stage of her development? If the dog has been safely contained at home, she has not gone out and joined a doggie crime gang. The dog, like the child, is forming positive and negative associations, based on the consequences she has experienced in life. It is the dog’s parent that has the responsibility to make sure the dog doesn’t start down the road to fear or dislike of children.
Obviously, if we want to have fewer dog bites, we need to stop leaving it up to the children not to get bitten. It is every dog owner’s responsibility to socialize their puppies to children and all other kinds of humans during the critical socialization period. Once this period is passed (after 16 weeks), you have a LOT of long hours of careful, structured work to make an impression on the beliefs your dog holds to be true about the universe. And even then, your dog may never believe that kids are not aliens or dangerous. I can not stress this point strongly enough. Socialization of your puppy is the first step in becoming a responsible dog parent. If you are there to guide your pup though the critical stages of his socialization by introducing him to as many kinds of people, places, sights, sounds, smells and surfaces as possible in a positive and non-threatening way, your dog will be much less likely to fear new things as an adult.
At the same time, I implore all parents to please CONTROL young children. They are not capable of controlling themselves. During their early socialization periods, they simply do not know better than to do many “dumb” things. Any dog can bite. I know that insurance companies think that it is the “breed” (Pit Bulls and Rottweilers) that is responsible for the tendency to bite, but this is absurd. It is the fear from lack of socialization or bad early experiences that make an individual dog (regardless of breed) a prime candidate for a defensive biting incident. You can’t tell by looking at a dog what kind of socialization it has had as a puppy. Even the cute ones could be potential fear-biters, so parents need to keep their toddlers AWAY from all dogs, unless they know the dog and know how it will react to the sudden movements of the child.
The dog that is near and dear to my heart must be watched like a hawk when small children are near. She would never go out of her way to go after a child. She wants to distance herself from children as much as possible. I must always be sure that she has an escape route when children are present. As long as she can get away, she has no need to defend herself from the “attack child.” When she was almost 9 weeks old (at the end of her fear imprint period), I had her out in a store trying to socialize her to as many new things as possible. The problem was that I had a broken leg and I was in a wheelchair at the time. A friend was holding my puppy’s leash, when suddenly an uncontrolled toddler came screaming at my puppy. The kid literally trampled my little baby puppy, as I watched from 20 feet away. To this day, she thinks that all toddlers are going to hurt her and kick and stomp her to death. Silly, I know, because she’s bigger than a toddler and should not be afraid, right? Wrong. What happens during a puppy’s critical socialization period stays with it for the rest of its life. I felt so bad that I wasn’t at the other end of the leash to get between the rampaging toddler and my innocent, impressionable puppy. Trust me, I would have done ANYTHING to deflect this child from inflicting permanent psychological damage on my puppy. If I could go back in time and change one event of my life, it would be that moment. Because, despite my best efforts to continually expose my dog to calm, safe, non-invasive children, she remains terrified at the sight or sound of an approaching toddler.
The people responsible for puppies and small children need to act more responsibly. It is my fervent wish that all parents of new puppies expose their young dogs in a positive way to safe, calm children which are under control. And that all parents of small children expose their toddlers to safe, calm canines which are under control, so that the two kinds of “kids” will form positive associations with one another. This will lead to fewer dog bites, lower insurance rates, and a better society as a whole. Oh, and if you happen to be the parent of a human child, do society a favor and don’t let him go into the corner store unsupervised... If you have found this information helpful, please consider a donation so DSA can continue to provide useful information that helps people all over the world make life better for dogs.
