Kids, Pups & Training

Even the best laid plans can be laid to waste when you're not looking.  The level of energy a puppy can dish out, can sometimes seem like the perfect match for a busy household full of children.  At first, it may seem like you have made the 'best' choice in the Universe, to add a fur-kid to the mix...but, as a non-judgemental, observing professional, I offer some words of advise:

Wait until the kids are older.

If a puppy is what you really want, waiting 'til your children are old enough to have more physical and emotional control around a creature made for exploring with its mouth, might be a more peaceful choice.  Most kids past the age of 8 years old, make wonderful dog trainers, with the right guidance.  They can actually help you a lot with a puppy.  Think about it, that's one more pair of eyes to watch the pup.  That's another person who can put a leash on a puppy and take it outdoors to eliminate.  That is even a person who can help make sure the house (and their bedrooms) are more puppy-proofed.  Not to mention, these young adults-in-the-making are well past toilet training themselves, which means, no diapers for the dog to eat.


Smaller kids take a lot of work.  They take a lot of patience.  They take eyes in the back of EVERYBODY's heads to keep them safe and occupied.  If you must add a dog to this chaos, and I do believe in adding a dog, take a look at adopting an older dog.  One that has already moved out of the crazy stages of pooping in your house, or chewing your kids' toys to bits, or chasing them like prey.  A dog that is grown up and not really interested in treating your young daughter like a squeaky toy, because let's face it, when a puppy's needle teeth meet kid-skin the child is going to make lots of fun noises that will most likely prompt the puppy to do it again.


Adopting a dog who has already proven that they like children, makes it easier for you, as a parent, to truly enjoy watching your family grow like this.  You can also avoid the frustration of raising a young pup, who quickly turns into an adolescent, if you adopt an older dog.  In a pup's "teenage" stages (appx. 6 to 18 months of age; depending on breed and size) they will act much like any teenager, and challenge you.  They will begin to expand their idea of what "close enough" to you is, and the vast majority of them will make you wonder why you even attempted to train them, because obviously none of it stuck! *Fantastic time to sign your dog up for a Terrible Teens or Intermediate Obedience class*

Take heart, your dog is normal.  This is a great time to take a meditation class yourself, or at least take a few deep breaths and know that your pup does know what you're asking, they are just willfully choosing to ignore you.  This is the stage that finds a lot of unlucky dogs in the shelter, as it can wear a lot of people down and they simply give up on these dogs.  Couple this stage of life with children who are still in their toddling stages, like a 2 year old, and you can imagine how tough it can be to get your training to maintain the level of consistency it needs. 

Alright, so you've already added a puppy to the fray, and it seems the dog is not listening, or is becoming "aggressive."  Now What?!?
Check to see if you are allowing the kids to be with the puppy AT ALL when you don't have eyes on the pack.  Seriously.  You might think you have the world's best behaved, or sweet, or gentle kids, but I can almost guarantee, that the natural Human Being curiosity has led your kid to try something not-so-gentle at one time or another.  If we all came into the world without the need to learn "don't hit," or "no hair pulling" "do not bite your sister" "ears are fragile" "toys do not belong in there"....

 If you have kids who can speak a little (or a lot), watch that they aren't marching around demanding "SIT! SIT! SIT!" to a pup who just learned what Sit means.  This will make your training a waste of time, as the dog will most likely try to respond the first couple of times, but very quickly learns that it is just noise, and is not getting rewarded when they do respond. 

When teaching your pup, it may be a good idea to occupy the kids with something else, such as a movie or have an older person play games with them, so you can teach the dog what you want it to learn.  This way, you aren't attempting to get the dog to sit, while your kid races around being a HUGE distraction, or is touching the pup as you try to teach.  Again, this is a HUGE distraction, and most dogs cannot focus on you while this is happening, which can create frustration.

After the dog understand the cue, then perhaps you can be the reward dispenser/helper for the young child who wants to help.  The kid says "SIT!" and you help the pup to sit, and you give the puppy the reward.  Or, the child can reward the pup, provided you feel the pup won't accidentally bite the hand of said child....I usually ask very young kids to put the reward on the floor for the pup, and I hold the pup's collar until the child has stood back up, so the pup can get the reward without feeling like they must steal it from the kid.

 I worked with a very creative couple a while ago, who heard me talk about these things, and decided to teach their dog in a different language, so the children would not ruin what they were attempting to do.  This way, if the parents saw the child and dog heading for trouble, they had a way to intervene verbally that the dog had been taught to respond to.  And because the kid was busy doing her kid thing, and speaking English, this worked marvelously.


I am not saying the kid won't eventually figure out your 'coded' system of talking to the dog, but it may give you an edge in keeping the training consistent.  Children of a very young age do not have the developed observational skills needed to know when it is important to reward a puppy, and when to wait for the puppy to do what you've asked.  This is a more grown-up skill, and it is important that you, as responsible people, are not leaving the puppy with the kids unsupervised. 

You can start out with a perfectly good pup, and by accident, your children may turn her into a resource guarder.  Maybe when you weren't looking, your kid slapped the puppy on the head and stole the toy away from her.  The next time she took your child's toy, and she saw the kid coming, her natural instincts told her "i'm gonna get slapped again" so she growled, or maybe even snapped.  The kid stopped trying to take that toy (or worse, the kid escalated the level of violence in order to get the toy), and the puppy learned, "if i growl and snap, i get to keep things."  This goes on for a few times, before you see it happen one day, and now, you think you have an aggressive dog.
 
 Had this situation been supervised, it would have gone something like this:
The puppy stole your kids toy, you saw it, so you intervened, using "drop" and traded the puppy a treat for the toy.  Your kid got the toy back, and you rewarded the puppy for appropriate action.  After that, you gave the puppy something more appropriate to chew on, and your puppy learns "if i drop things, i get a treat!"

Realize, that if you have young kids, and are trying to raise a puppy at the same time, your training will take longer.  It will also be less perfect.  But that's ok.  If you can relax a little, and know that because you have so many other Human influences happening in your puppy's life, it is going to influence the training.  It effects everything.  But it doesn't have to ruin it.