Just shaking my head.... - Page 2

As I've said already, I told my kids when they were old enough to know better - what you do to the dogs I do to you. It didn't take them long to learn what hurt.

I've had a lot of dogs and many were raised with my kids. We only had one biting indicent with a mixed dog. My daughter thought if was great fun to poke at Mitzi as she laid under the bed. She would poke at the dog and the dog would bark and show her teeth. I warned my daughter that one day she will get bit and the dog would not be blamed. Sure enough, it happened and she suffered a nip to her upper lip that could have been a lot worse. That ended teasing that dog.

As far as hugging family dogs, I have to say had any of my dogs raised by me from puppies ever shown any aggression toward any of my kids for hugging them in a loving way, that dog would have been given a one way trip to the big kennel in the sky. I definitely agree to not leave dogs alone with kids.

Bronco, you need to learn to read dog body language. The beagle is pulling away fron the girl, and has one paw raised, which is a sign of anxiety. The shepherd is also trying to get away, and has its ears laid back, another sign of unhappiness. The rotti looks like it's not bothered by the kid, and it's hard to say what the dog having its lips pulled back by the girl in the red dress is thinking. Still, pulling a dog's lips is not a very safe thing to do, if the dog should decide it doesn't like being handled in that way! The husky has its mouth open in what looks to be a happy grin, so I think it's okay with the kid sitting on its back.

You know, and I also agree with R-E-S-P-E-C-T, please don't take away from any of my posts that I generally think that you should do whatever the hell you want with your dogs, and allow your kids to stand on them and ride them! 

My point was this, I enjoy reading Pedigreedatabase often, and have learned much from all of your posts! I had said earlier in my post;

"I think this post could be very educational for people like myself who don't have a problem with this, if your dog is raised in your family....."

We raise our dogs from puppies on purpose, because I know it would be a tall order to ask a grown dog to put up with my kids! HA!

But...shaming is not educating, and I understand if I am ignorant, I don't have as much experience as ya'll have....I have just taken away from mixing dogs and family that we need to respect and tollerate eachother...my dog can't bite my kid...and my kid can't smack my dog with a stick...my kid can lay on my dog if they are sitting there relaxing enjoying eachothers company...and my dog lays on my kid! If something has to be addressed I feel the right one in the wrong gets disciplined, wether it being my kid or my dog..."Shrugs"....

P.S. Sunsilver, I have that book, and have read it ;), and my kids are never alone with my dogs (and I am constantly learning)...the beauty of being a stay at home mom! We all get to enjoy life together!

Sunsilver, I posted without getting a chance to read your last thread, and I did find it very educating!

I do agree with you on some of those photos however, my thoughts on the beagle with it's paw up was not that it was uncomfortable but more of, when something is pulled one way, naturally it wants to go the other way, and interestingly, I thought the wide eyes on the rotty was a sign of stress, so I do have much to learn!

I think you're all right here, just different sides of the coin. My ideal dog is hardwired not to hurt little kids who do stupid things unless its outright cruelty. I just finished training two puppies whose owners wanted them socialized. One pup had a kid charge up, go nose to nose, and stare hard into the pups eyes. Yeah, the kid was an idiot although he didn't mean any harm. The pup stared back and then something clicked and he just melted and got all waggy tailed. The other pup had two kids who asked to pet him hug him instead. Again, the kids were well-meaning idiots. This pup also paused and then melted and got all waggy tailed. They are both genetically hardwired to like kids. Both are good quality Czech-lines GSDs. Their owners are very pleased, but I've warned them not to let kids take advantage of the pups good nature.

BUT many dogs are not like that and kids should learn to respect dogs! The kids obviously aren't at fault, the parents are. I'm an increasingly crabby old poop and I remember the days when the first question a kid got asked if he told his parents a dog bit him was, what did you do to the dog? And if you bothered the family dog while he was eating and he snapped at you and you went crying to your parents, you heard something like, what did I tell you, don't bother the dog while he's eating!

This from an even crabbier old poop back in the 1920's:

Nothing else can form and develop gloriously needful traits in a child as can a dog of its own. On the other hand, there is nothing else which can develop a child's latent traits of cruelty and bullying as can the possession of a helpless puppy. It depends wholly on the parents whether their child shall learn patience and common sense and kindliness and consideration and protectiveness from the gift-dog; or whether the dog is to be tortured and neglected and ill treated. In the latter case, the poor puppy is not the ultimate loser; but the child itself. Soon, the pup will die. Its troubles will be at an end. [Not an exaggeration even today since dogs who finally fight back often end up euthanized.] But the child's newborn love of tormenting and of domineering and of petty tyranny will live on - to be wreaked some day on human victims.

Yes, that may sound far-fetched to you. But I have taken the trouble, more than once, to prove its truth.

When I was six years old, my father gave me a pointer puppy. It occurred to me that it would be vastly amusing to pick the pudgy youngster up by his long ears and swing him to and fro in pendulum fashion. I did so. The puppy squealed most entertainingly. My father came out on the lawn, behind me. I did not know of his presence until he lifted me high in the air by my own ample ears, and swung me to and fro. It hurt horribly, and I bellowed like a smitten bull-calf. He set me down, without a word, and went back into the house. As I stood there howling and wishing he were dead, it dawned on me by degrees that the luckless pointer pup had suffered exactly the same pain from my playful antics as I had suffered from my father's punishment. I remember it as vividly as though it had happened yesterday. It impressed me as no lecture or spanking could have done. For some reason, it cured me forever of any impulse to cause suffering in others for my own amusement. I think I began, unconsciously, my study of dog nature from that hour. Perhaps this was an extreme case with an extreme penalty. But it shows what I am driving at in this preachment.

--Albert Payson Terhune

Yeah, I know, his dad would be arrested today. But he sure made the point. And Terhune got it instead of wailing for the rest of his life about how he'd been permanently traumatized.

I appreciate the OP's pics and the comments about the dogs body language.

I don't post here much and this is all I have to say about this. I have dogs to train. Jon

When I was six years old, my father gave me a pointer puppy. It occurred to me that it would be vastly amusing to pick the pudgy youngster up by his long ears and swing him to and fro in pendulum fashion. I did so. The puppy squealed most entertainingly. My father came out on the lawn, behind me. I did not know of his presence until he lifted me high in the air by my own ample ears, and swung me to and fro. It hurt horribly, and I bellowed like a smitten bull-calf. He set me down, without a word, and went back into the house. As I stood there howling and wishing he were dead, it dawned on me by degrees that the luckless pointer pup had suffered exactly the same pain from my playful antics as I had suffered from my father's punishment. 

Uh huh........... what you do to the dogs, I do to you and you will soon find out what hurts. 

Xena absolutely adores kids! She'll spend all day following them around the yard, playing in the mud, inspecting newly built forts they've created, etc. The kids absolutely adore Xena as well. They have been allowed to give her little hugs here and there; never more than an arm around her shoulders and maybe a quick scratch...however, since the kids were young, we made it a point to teach them how to properly treat and respect animals.. Sometimes kids forget, or they decide to come up with a new chasing game (which any dog person very well knows how that ends). 
When Xena was about 14 weeks old, she snapped at our daughter's face. We didn't see this happen, but all the kids did. Instead of being upset with Xena, we asked our daughter what had happened. She said she was just trying to play and Xena just tried to bite her...hmmm. Then, the boys all chimed in and told us that our daughter was on her hands and knees like a dog and growled and pretended to snap at Xena...the truth comes out! Whether Xena was playing or felt threatened, I can't say for sure (most likely the latter of the two, we only had her for about a week). So, we had a talk with our daughter about respecting personal boundaries, and told her that if she did anything like that again, she wouldn't be allowed to play with Xena anymore (which would be punishment enough, as we are all animal lovers). Needless to say, we never have had another incident even minutely close to that.
I can honestly say that our kids really were conditioned to the dog, and how to understand her behaviors; rather than getting onto the dog for not just letting the kids treat her however they want....that picture with the kid standing on that dog just makes my blood boil! Grr!!

I'm an increasingly crabby old poop and I remember the days when the first question a kid got asked if he told his parents a dog bit him was, what did you do to the dog? And if you bothered the family dog while he was eating and he snapped at you and you went crying to your parents, you heard something like, what did I tell you, don't bother the dog while he's eating!

That's EXACTLY how things were when I was a kid, too! 

BTW, the Palin boy is mentally handicapped. I think they said he has Down's Syndrome. What's wrong with the mother, or whoever took the picture instead of telling the kid he shouldn't use the dog as a step-stool? Well, you can't fix stupid...

I remember hearing the same thing growing up, questioning what was done to the dog to make it react the way it did. Dogs really are simple creatures, it is us who complicates them. And if we're either taught correctly, or learn to accurately study them and learn from them, their body language becomes easier to read.

I suppose this type of learning and/or respect is unfortunately becoming a thing of the past...similar to what is happening to common sense (I won't even get started on that one, lol).

As for the boy with special needs, I think we can all agree that the camera person, or the parent could have very well prevented this behavior...obviously not the child's fault. 

OK, so how many folks have complained to the Frito-Lay company about the commercial featuring the kid riding the Mastiff like a horse? [I realize that it's not actually happening in the commercial, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it!]

As for the Palin picture, why, that was just a little good, old-fashioned sharing of a precious family moment, so how dare anyone take issue with it? [Yes, this is paraphrased, but that was basically her response when people complained about her posting it.] To me, it's a picture of a developmentally disabled child who is not being sufficiently supervised by whoever was supposed to be watching him--if the dear child had decided he wanted to 'help Mommy' in the kitchen by grabbing a kitchen knife and trying to chop up veggies, and in doing so cut the tip of his finger off, would Mommy have grabbed her smart phone to take a picture of her 'problem-solver' [and bleeding] boy?

If the dog had gotten up instead of tolerating the affront, and her 'problem-solver' boy had fallen and fractured his skull on the hard floor, would that have been a photo-op of a special family moment, too?

The rule in my parent's house when I was a kid was if the dog bit you, the dog didn't get in trouble--you did, because you clearly did something you shouldn't have done to bring about the bite. My grandmother had a little spaniel-cross when I was a child, and the dog didn't like kids...so as soon as the grandkids arrived at the house, the dog went behind and underneath the sofa, and she stayed there. If one of us kids tried to look behind there, the dog would growl, clearly warning she was not playing. Any kid that got bitten would have had to been crawling under the sofa and trying to drag the dog out--but none of the 20+ grandkids who were around during the dog's 12.5 year life span were ever bitten by the spaniel. We all learned quickly that the dog biting us would be the least of our problems if we pushed that boundary.