Dogs and Kids Guide: Training, Home Prep & Guidelines for Healthy Kid-Dog Relationships | Pupford

Introducing a new dog to your home with children comes with its own set of challenges!

Similarly, bringing home a newborn baby to your home with dogs takes extra care and steps to ensure the safety and happiness of your baby.

In this episode of The Perfect Pup Podcast, we talk about the following:

• How to introduce a new dog to kids in your home
• How to introduce a new baby to the dog in your home
• How to teach your kids to properly greet a dog
• Ways to prevent problems between kids and dogs
• And much more!

Even if you don't have kids of your own, your dog should be taught how to safely interact with children.

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Related Reading: How to Introduce a Dog to a Baby

Full Podcast/Video Transcript of Kids and Dogs Episode

MIKE:

All right, everybody. Welcome to the perfect pup podcast. We are just happy that you are joining us again today. Glad to have you here. Today we are going to be talking about kids and dogs. So we will talk about introducing kids to dogs. So we're going to talk about introducing dogs to kids. We'll talk a little bit about bringing a new puppy home if you have kids. Or bringing a new kid home if you have a puppy. Prepping your home for puppies and kids, stuff like that. And we will be talking about solutions for how to fix any challenges that might come up surrounding those types of things.

DEVIN:

And even if you don't have dogs yet or don't...

MIKE:

If you don't have kids yet. Or if you don't have a dog yet.

DEVIN:

If you don't have kids yet or you don't have a dog. It's still relevant for you because if you have a dog, you should be prepped for children or your dog being around kids, no matter what because it will pop up at one time or another.

MIKE:

100%

DEVIN:

All right, and in today's pup dates, this is a really awesome article I stumbled upon. I was pretty excited to see about it. I don't know about you, I want to live to be like a hundred years old at least so that I can have a ton of dogs, right? That's the main reason, and be with my family and stuff.

MIKE:

What's crazy is that's getting more and more realistic.

DEVIN:

Like having a bunch of dogs?

MIKE:

Well having a bunch of dogs is more realistic. But also having a bunch of years on your life, with all the medical technology and advancements and stuff like that. Anyway not to sidetrack you too much.

DEVIN:

That's true but it's it ties into this. So there was a study that came out recently that basically said owning a dog is tied to lowering your risk of dying at an early age by 24%. So essentially you are 25% more likely to live longer if you have a dog. So, fight through the puppy blues if you're in those right now, because in all reality it's gonna help you live longer. Although right now it might feel like it's gonna make you go crazy. But in the long run, it's gonna help you live longer. We'll share the link to that article in the show notes/episode notes, whatever you want to call them.

MIKE:

That's awesome. I haven't read the article yet but you would imagine it's got to do with just general wellness, your happiness, the state. Because there's a lot of studies out there, too, that talk about how quality of life is improved. If you have a better quality of life, reduces stress. Probably it would help increase longevity I would imagine.

DEVIN:

It talks, as well, about how, there are studies that just show even petting a dog can lower your blood pressure, and those types of things. And so having a dog around you all the 

time is just gonna help with those types of things. Plus you know things like you're more likely to exercise because you gotta walk your dog, those types of things. It talks about in the article too, about how people who had heart problems specifically showed an even greater improvement with dogs because they're more likely to go on walks, which is gonna keep their blood pressure down and keep them healthier, those types of things.

MIKE:

Yeah, well there's the whole side of immunity too, like dogs bring more germs into the house and stuff like that, which kind of helps you be healthier, and it probably increases it as well.

DEVIN:

Yeah. Which leads perfectly into the main topic of kids and dogs. Because kids and dogs are all about germs, and they love putting everything in their mouth.

MIKE:

And then using that hand to put in your mouth and whatnot.

DEVIN:

Exactly. So that's what we're gonna talk about right now. Kids and dogs.

MIKE:

Love it, yeah. So, I have two kids. Devin doesn't have kids yet. But a lot of nieces and nephews and whatnot. Like Devin said earlier, whether you have kids or not, this is applicable. Because if you're out walking your dog, or you're at the park, or you have family or friends over you're going to want to make sure that your dog is able to properly interact with those children. So that it is a great experience for both of them. Your dog is safe, the kids are safe. your dog knows how to act, and is confident around the kids. And then we're also going to cover like how kids should act around dogs.

DEVIN:

For sure. It's not talked about enough. That's why we're gonna talk about it.

MIKE:

Yeah, it's not talked about enough. And one of the reasons why we want to cover this topic too is, think about this from your dog's perspective a little bit. Kids are erratic. There is no way to predict what they're gonna do next. Like, living example, Devin and I were talking last night. We had a rough night with one of our kids last night. And you just never know. And if you have kids out there. or if you've ever been around kids, which is probably all of you, you know that they're just tiny little maniacs. But from a dog's perspective, dogs do so well with consistency, and with schedules, and with understanding a little bit of what's coming next. Most dogs they don't like surprises. They don't like being thrown off, and kids are just full of that. You don't know when they're gonna scream. You don't know when they're gonna huck something. You don't know when they're gonna shove a booger in your face.

DEVIN:

Or just like, hit.

MIKE:

Hit, or whatever. So, from your dog's perspective, they're thinking, "All right, who is this crazy person? This tiny little crazy person that is screaming? And I never know if they're like, are they mad at me? Are they happy to be here? Or are they gonna pull my tail?" So from the dogs perspective, that's kind of a challenging thing to approach. But there are things you could do to help your dog be prepped for that. And also to help your kids or other kids interact a little bit more effectively with dogs a little more safely.

DEVIN:

And rolling on what you were saying about, from the dog's perspective, and then from the kids perspective, and your perspective as well. Like some of the problems that a lot of times come up with dogs and kids is kids getting nipped at, or being bitten, or you get one of the really big ones, especially on a puppy, is the puppy jumping up. Right? And if a puppy jumps up on you, as an adult, you can handle it. It's not gonna knock you over. But kids are small, and they're also learning how to walk, and they're a little bit unstable on their feet. And that can cause more problems. So those are some of the main things that we want to help you understand how to approach it from both sides. Like with your dogs and with your kid, to make them understand how to live with each other. how to coexist, essentially.

MIKE:

Yeah. their head to body ratio is different than ours. They tip more easily.

DEVIN:

That's true.

MIKE:

They're like, they're bonking their head on stuff.

DEVIN:

They're like those little things as a kid you used to punch, and it falls over?It's kind of that but inverted. Right?

MIKE:

Yeah. The inverted thing punchers.

DEVIN:

The inverted inflatable punching bag.

MIKE:

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, and if I had a nickel for every time my big noggin' kids bunk their head on something. We have a lot more dogs...

DEVIN:

You have more dogs, so you have more nickels.

MIKE:

More nickels, bingo. Yeah, the other thing too is when you're introducing a child into an environment where you already have a dog, I mean, we'll just get into this, I guess, yeah? So, when you're introducing a child into an environment or home where you already have a dog, another thing to consider is your dog probably isn't all that familiar with kids toys and kids things, like a bottle or a burp cloth that probably smells fantastic to your dog when they got a little puke, whatever it is. I mean they got a little puke on them. So that's one thing that, for us, we had a dog first before kids so we kind of had to introduce Doris to what her toys were, and what her toys weren't. Because, previously if there was something chewy laying on the floor...

DEVIN:

That's hers. Free game.

MIKE:

Oh yeah. She was going for it. And also previously, she could hop up on the couch if she wanted. But in this new world, that's not the case. You know? if you got a little baby laying on the couch, you don't want the dog jumping up all the time. Because you don't want him to land on the baby. Your kids, as kids do, they'll throw toys on the floor. And you don't want the dog chewing up all those toys all the time, you know. So there's definitely an adjustment there that you that you want to think about also.

DEVIN:

So let's go into some of the specific ways how to prep your house for the new baby, or dog if you already have a baby. Number one above all, I think,and this is so true for so many behaviors and so many things with dogs, is just controlling the environment. In the beginning when you first either bring home said new puppy or new child or maybe both if you are going that route, which, bless your soul if you are.

MIKE:

At the same time?

DEVIN:

Yeah, at the same time. That would be intense.

MIKE:

Oh boy. Don't do that.

DEVIN:

But it's controlling the environment. You know? realistically, in the beginning I would say any kid under 8 years old shouldn't have free reign around a new puppy. And then any dog that's under probably a year old, and definitely at least in the beginning stages, shouldn't have free reign to where the baby is. So a lot of it is just controlling that environment and making sure that whenever the dog is near the child, you are there to be present. You are there to be monitoring what's happening and being able to step in in an instant because you can read the dog's body language. If something bad is about to happen. If the dog's not seeing where the kid is and is gonna knock them over, and you can be there, present. So that's such a big part of it. it's just being there, and not giving too much freedom to the dog or the kid in the beginning.

MIKE:

Yeah, and body language is huge with that like you mentioned. You know? if your dog starts to stiffen up, if your dog's tail starts to go down between its legs as opposed to wagging, if your dog is making audible growls. They're all pretty obvious signs, but it's super important to pay attention to those things when they're with a person or with anybody. You know? Even with other dogs. Just to know, like, "okay. is it safe right now? Do I need to remove something? Remove the dog from this situation or remove the kid from this situation to make sure everyone's safe?" But yeah, it's important to pay attention to those types of things.

DEVIN:

And then I remember you talking one day about something that you guys did? You brought home... so you had Doris first, and then with the birth of your first kid you've brought home some of her clothes. Walk us through that kind of first day, or even before the baby came home kind of thing. Like, what did that look like?

MIKE:

Yeah. So Doris was, how old was she? She was about two when we brought our oldest daughter home.

DEVIN: 

So, a little bit more mellowing out.

MIKE:

Yeah, yeah. And for you folks that have brand-new puppies, like you know how hard it can be. Yeah, even if they're well trained at a year, or a year and a half, sometimes it will take them get into that two-year plus point to start really chilling out a little bit more. But she was starting to mellow out a lot more at that point. And this is by no means scientific or anything. This is kind of our own approach to it and what we had read was a good way of doing it. But leading up to it we... before you have a baby you start getting all kinds of baby stuff there, you know? So you kind of have to familiarize your dog with that. With Doris, We kind of started helping her familiarize. We didn't leave the toys on the floor, like we talked about. We kind of tried to control the environment there. So she couldn't just get access to whatever she wanted anymore. And then when we actually had our oldest girl, I went home first. Wou know? there were some things that we needed to get at home while my wife was at the hospital, still with the baby before we were released. And I took some of the baby's things home and let Doris sniff them. And kind of take her first steps in familiarizing to the new normal a little bit. So when we brought the baby home, it wasn't too much of an abrupt change.

DEVIN:

"I have smelt this before."

MIKE:

We eased into it a little bit. You take some things home. Let Doris smell them. Let her start to familiarize with that, and understand "Okay, what is this new smell?" At that point obviously she wasn't super sure what it was. But you know, at least she had an understanding of it for when we did bring our little girl home she was familiar with her smell. And she realized, like, "okay, I remember this a little bit." and she kind of eased into it a little bit more. And then once that happens too, like Devin was saying before, controlling the environment is going to be really important on that set of things. you know? You don't want to leave your baby just laying around on the floor while the dog is able to kind of have their own access like they did previously. Because they're dealing with something completely foreign at that point. This new little thing is screaming all the time, and it has a bunch of weird smells. And it's puking, and things are coming out of it and all that.

DEVIN:

And it's laying usually in places that, like, it's not, you know, the dogs are not used to humans being in those places. Sometimes it's laying on the ground, or is in, like, you know...

MIKE:

"What's this new baby carrier? Or walker? Or a pack and play or whatever else?" Right?

DEVIN:

Right. So new places even that your dog is used to just being, like "hey I can just step wherever I want." and so, they can't do that anymore.

MIKE: 

Yeah, so controlling that environment is important, leading up to it. Like we talked about before, you know? Creating those safe spaces for both the baby and the dog. As your kid starts to move around a little bit, the dog needs a place where they can feel comfortable and safe as well. So maybe that's a play area for them, or it's their crate. We're big fans of crate training. You know that if you followed us for any amount of time. That's one more reason why it's just so important to crate train your dog. You know? You can give them a safe place where they can go. Don't let your kid go up and grab on the crate. Don't let them bang on the crate. Try and keep your kid from going into the crate as well. It should be a place, a safe place for your dog, especially at first. As your kids get older, and as the dog and kid get better at interacting with each other, that safe place environment is still important, but it's not going to be as critical at that point to make sure that kid just stays completely away from it. You know? But initially you want to keep that separate as much as possible if you can. Just to keep your dog safe in the crate, and, like I said, don't let the kid go up and bang on the crate or anything like that. As they start to get mobile. You know? This will be a few months down the road, obviously. But safe places for dogs, safe places for kid will be important. Prepping your dogs well, like, one thing for us, we had to teach... previously Doris could just jump up on the couch whatever she wanted to. When we brought our oldest girl home we had to teach her, "Nope, you're only allowed up here when you have permission."

DEVIN:

Because sometimes baby goes up the couch laying down. Doris might not see her.

MIKE:

Yeah. So just to completely prevent any type of accidents, you know? We started teaching Doris previous to bringing our girl home that she needed to be invited up on the couch at that point. Not to jump up on her own.

DEVIN:

So, the general theme of what you're saying, what we've been talking about is taking it slowly, right? Incrementally getting your dog more used to the baby. And as your kid gets older, helping them understand how to be around the dog. So let's talk a little bit more about that side of things. Like how to get your dog ready. One thing that I want to touch on, and I think it's one of those things, if you are in the 30-day perfect pup class that we offer. It's done by Zach George. He talks a lot about how when you have a puppy, you should do as much as you can to get them used to being handled, and being touched, and being even in some cases picked up, and having their paws touched. And if you're bringing home a new puppy and you already have a younger kid or vice versa, when you get a new puppy, you should do as much as you can to just get them used to being, for lack of a better word, harassed. Right? Do it within safe means, and be reading your dog's body language. But with our puppies, and I'm sure you did this too, we were always yanking on their tails, and then forewarning them when they're calm, and pulling their ears a little bit, poking them in the mouth.

MIKE:

Messing with their paws. Paws are a sensitive area for them.

DEVIN:

Things that kids are gonna do because like we talked about, kids are unpredictable. Even when they're getting a little bit older, 2, 3 years old, you're starting to teach them like, "hey, be soft with the dog." "this is how you pet." Those types of things. But they do things and sometimes they just hit. They don't really understand. And so, doing as much as you can to basically practice those situations. Again, just like with so many dog behaviors and things in dog training is practicing the situation before it happens so your dog knows how to react. And sometimes just kind of bothering them a lot. Especially when they're puppies. If you just got a puppy and you can start doing this now, again whether you have kids or not, or plan on having kids in the future or not, they'll be around children, so getting them used to just being harassed basically is gonna be so helpful.

MIKE:

Yeah. And even outside of kids. You want to desensitize them to that because they're gonna go to the groomer, you're gonna need to clip their nails. You're gonna have to give them baths. There are so many... Or if they ever have to go to the vet for an accident or something like that, they will behave better if they have been desensitized to those types of things. Whether you have kids are not, those things are important early in your puppy's life.

DEVIN:

Yeah. Agreed. One other thing. I know we had a couple more points on here. But one other thing that, like we said, we don't think gets talked about often enough. And I think it's starting to improve in the world, and specifically the dog world. But teaching our kids how to act around dogs. Especially, this is something that could be learned for adults as well, right?

MIKE:

One hundred percent. Adults should apply these same principles.

DEVIN: 

Yeah, for sure. But it's even more so important for kids, right? Teaching your kids that if they see a dog walking down the street with their pup parent or whatever, they need to ask before they go and just get up in the dog's face and pet it. Again, that's why we're saying this. Hopefully everybody applies these techniques. Because there's way too many situations where people are working on training their fearful dogs, or dogs that are a little bit shy, or nervous, or history of being abused or something. Just teaching kids, and adults to ask for permission before you go up and pet a dog. I think so many accidents and incidental bites, and things that happen like that could be avoided by just teaching our kids, teaching young kids to ask for permission first.

MIKE:

Yeah, and what we've done with our girl, and I think it's a good approach, is taking one step further. And not just having them ask for permission to pet the dog, but ask us for permission to ask the owner to pet the dog. Because that's a good way to keep your kids safe too, right? because you don't want to running up to random strangers to ask if they can pet the dog. So, I think the best way to do it is have them ask you first, "Hey, can I ask him to pet that dog?" and that's worked out really well for us because Ren just loves, she loves going and petting other people's dogs, and meeting dogs.she'll see one, she'll look up at us and, "Hey, can I go ask to pet that dog?" And we would be like "Yes, you can." We'll go over there with her, and sometimes people will say no. Which is fantastic. So it's good to explain to your kids too, on that note, that some dogs don't want to be pet. Maybe teaching your kid that dogs, they're in a good mood a bad mood sometimes. And sometimes they want to be pet, and sometimes they don't. So it's okay if they say no. But most of the time, people will say yes, and you'll get a chance to meet a new dog.

DEVIN:

And what I love about that too is that not only is she learning to ask permission from the person with the dog, but it brings another adult into the picture. So then there's two adults who are watching this interaction happening, and can be in tuned to "Okay, I know that my kids about to do something crazy," or like, "I know my dog is about to do something bad," like, "let's get some space." So just creating, doing as much as you can. It goes back to controlling the environment like we talked about inside your home. It's the same thing even outside the home. Just making sure you're aware of what's happening whether it be your dog, your child, or both of them. Being aware of reading their body language, being present and available to intervene as needed. We have a private Facebook community and we see a lot of instances where people with new puppies, they're like "Oh, they keep nipping at my six-year-old," or "Jumping up on them, and my six-year-old is now terrified," and those happen, accidents happen. But the more that you can do to control the environment and stop bad things from happening before they do, right? Then you're not gonna have a kid who's terrified of the dog or a dog who's terrified of the kid. Just being preemptive and stopping the bad things before they happen.

MIKE:

And it's easier said than done sometimes, right? Because if you got kids running around, and you have a new puppy running around, your life's probably a little bit chaotic. But that's just the nature of the beast. Dogs are going to be a lot of work, just like kids are a lot of work. So doing everything you can to control the environment in that type of situation, keeping the pup and the six-year-old separate is going to be super important.

DEVIN:

And we talked about, if it's a young puppy, having them tethered to you inside the home. Because if you know that your kid is off in a certain room, even if your dog were to try and go in there, if they're connected to you it's not gonna happen. You're more in control of the situation.

MIKE:

Yeah, for sure. One thing I thought about from a second ago, just to add on to when your kid is asking to pet someone else's dog. Another important thing is teaching your child where to pet dogs. So often we see people petting directly on the face or on the head. Kids probably shouldn't do that. You should teach your kids that they probably will be better off petting a dog on the back, or someplace that's a little bit less bitey than the face. Just because kids are erratic and you don't know how dogs are gonna react. It's just one of those "better safe than sorry" types of things. Teach them to pet in an area that's less sensitive typically would be an important step for that as well, I think.

DEVIN:

Again, just being pre-emptive and avoid the situations that could become problematic as much as possible. One other thing I just wanted to add about controlling the environment in your home. If you're struggling to do that, an awesome way is the use of baby gates. Baby gates are great for keeping babies from going places you don't want them to. like staircases, those types of things. But it's also a great way to just put up a physical divider between a baby and a dog because you it's just another way to control the environment we have those in our house. When our nieces and nephews come over and sometimes you can tell they're getting over overwhelmed, it's like "okay, you in the living room, put the dogs in the kitchen we'll close the baby gate. take a 10-15 minute break from each other and just have some space."

MIKE:

Yeah, for sure. With all these said too, the relationship between a dog and a kid is one of the coolest things.

DEVIN:

Also some of the greatest montages on Facebook and YouTube. Just like the two-minute videos of dog and kids, cuddling. You can't beat it.

MIKE:

No, you really can't. It's really incredible. I look at Doris, our dog's relationship with both of our kids. Our younger girl is now getting to the age where she can interact a little bit more. She'll wake up in the morning and she'll just "duh, duh, duh," looking at Doris, trying to say "Doris." Trying to get to Doris, and she'll sit on the floor. Doris just loves licking her face, and they just love that interaction. The little one will go up and try and give Doris big old kisses on the face. It is one of the coolest relationships that there can be. But that relationship is created by the proper introductions. And just like any relationship, both parties understanding how they should interact with each other. We can help. We don't want this in any way to come across negatively as far as "Hey we got to put all these barriers between kids and dog". It's more like "Let's set up the right environment to where the relationship can be the very most that it possibly can be."

DEVIN:

That's the thing. We talked about it a lot how our main goal is to just help pup parents create a better relationship with their dog. And that goes for the kids of the pup parents. The entire family having a good relationship with the dog. Real quick story. When my wife first got her dog, Buddy, she was like 11, 12 years old. So she was put more in charge of taking care of Buddy. She tells me all the time how much when she first got Buddy, there were one or two instances where she would just go crying to her parents and say "give Buddy back". Because he's too much, because he was a puppy, right? he was high-energy, he was always running.

MIKE:

Puppies are the worst. Right? They're great, but they're the worst.

DEVIN:

Imagine, it's just funny, she was literally standing on the table yelling for her parents like, "GetBbuddy out of here. He won't leave me alone." And tears streaming down her face. But now, they have the greatest connection ever. My wife has had Buddy for so long. And that's what's awesome, too, about kids and dogs. And love like your oldest and even your second girl. They're gonna have an awesome relationship with Doris. And they'll be great friends. That's just such a powerful bond and that's what we want you, your kids, and your dog to experience. And just to keep your kids safe, keep your dog safe when they're interacting with each other. any other thoughts you want to add on kids and dogs? I know we covered a lot and talked about a lot of different general things and ideas.

MIKE:

I think that pretty much covers it. Maybe one additional thing would just be, sometimes just because a kid interacting with a dog is cute doesn't mean that it's right necessarily.

A lot of times if there's a pup laying on the floor or something, the kid's natural interaction is gonna climb on top of them, you know?

DEVIN:

Flop down on them, sometimes. Yeah.

MIKE:

Yeah. That is honestly one of the cutest things ever. But you need to understand who your dog is, and understand what their thresholds are, and understand if they're gonna be willing to put up with that or not. That was pretty much the last thing I think wanted. Hopefully that's helpful for everyone.

DEVIN:

Awesome. Thanks for coming on. And if you have more, if this spurred more questions in your mind, or you're struggling with a specific kind of problem with kids and dogs, or anything in general, we recommend you go join our private Facebook community and sign up for our 30-day perfect pup class.

MIKE:

Do that first. Sign up for the 30 day perfect pup, or download the app.

DEVIN: 

Download the app. There's a Pupford app now.

MIKE: 

Android or ROS. ROS?

DEVIN:

ROS? Is that a new operating system?

MIKE:

It's a new operating system. Android or iOS. You can get it on both platforms. Just search Pupford in there. And the app, it's a better way to go through the 30 day perfect pup.

DEVIN:

And it'll help you with a lot of the foundational stuff that's gonna be important for keeping your dogs and kids safe, like teaching how to not bite, not chew your kids toys. Teaching them how to not jump, teaching them to be calm on a leash so that your kids can take them on walks, all that great stuff. And again you can join that private community, ask specific questions, get some help from other pup parents, and from the Pupford team, that type of thing. So, again thanks so much for coming and listening to this episode. if you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening. Or if you're watching, subscribe on YouTube. Leave us a review. Leave us a comment. We hope you'll come back for the next episode. anything else?

MIKE:

Oh yeah, we'll see you there.

DEVIN:

See you there. Thanks so much guys.

Have more questions about kid-dog relationships? Ask in the comments below!