Since lockdown, dog ownership has increased along with dog attacks. These dog attacks don’t just affect children on the day of the attack but can affect them for the rest of their life.
Many people assume it is always the dangerous breeds that bite, but this is not the case. In the UK the most common dog to bite is the cute Labrador. However, any dog no matter what breed can bite or attack at any time.
What can we do to reduce dog bites in children? What we are doing at the moment clearly isn’t working. More restrictions on dogs could make a dangerous situation even worse for children, as dogs will be more pent-up and frustrated if they are not given exercise and mental stimulation. More laws and training classes won’t have much effect.
I believe the answer is to educate the children from one-year-old onwards, that dogs bite if you don’t respect them and their laws. We all think our dogs are great with our kids and will never bite them, but, they will, if warnings are continually ignored.
Dogs don't plan, they react instantly to the threat or the pain at the time and can turn aggressive instantly, 0 to 10 in a split second. Dogs do all they can with their body language and facial expressions to avoid a bite or an attack. However, if we don’t listen to what the dog is saying, without realizing it we will be teaching the dog to bite without warning, putting you and your children in more danger.
If we are going to have a flight-flight predator in our homes, surely, we should teach our children their language to help keep both dog and child safe.
Teaching young children early on in their lives will help prevent many dog bites.
With the use of books and cartoons, teachers can make learning about dogs’ fun and interactive, but with a serious meaningful message.
Children are better at responding to instructions than most adults, as adults have pre-conceived ideas and ingrained behaviour from their past.
I rescued a one-year-old nervous aggressive border collie that was going to be put to sleep because he had bitten. I had to make sure that nobody went to touch him or stared at him as I knew he could bite, so I was very strict with people (Don’t touch him and don’t look at him) “I'm good with dogs” they would say, so I would say it again more firmly. When my son was born six years later, I was told I had to get rid of the dog. I knew if I taught my child from a baby don’t touch doggie, doggie bites, there would be no risk, also I would never leave them together on their own for a split second. We had 15 wonderful years with Sam, and my son grew up to love dogs and has a healthy respect for them.
You're Putting Your Children at Risk!
The way we treat our dogs with the misuse of our hands puts our children at risk and can teach the dog to bite without warning for the slightest hand movement.
Tapping the dog to stop the dog from doing something you don’t want them to do, pushing the dog or simply taking things off the dog without swapping for something nice, teaches the dog that hands aren’t very good. It’s the use of hands in this way that puts your children at risk. The child may just innocently go over to the dog to touch him and the dog reacts to that same hand movement without thinking and snaps.
All hand movements towards the dog need to be positive.
Hands come to praise not punish, hands come to give not take.
Social Media
Social media is full of photos of babies and children sleeping with dogs snuggled up to them and hugging them, seeing this constantly will make this kind of behaviour seem normal. It's not. Sometimes the dog may be ok with this, but he doesn’t like it because to the dog it's threatening, but he accepts it because he loves you. He may be subtly warning you that he really doesn’t like it, but we don’t heed that warning and weeks months or years later he bites.
The most common comments I hear from owners of dogs that have bitten are: “There was no warning” or “He's never done it before”. There have been many warnings you just haven’t noticed them or understood the dog's language.
The other reason why this is dangerous with your children is that this behaviour could be seen as the normal way to behave around the dog, the child goes over and hugs or lies down on the dog, and the dog feels pain because he has hurt himself or his arthritis is hurting him and instantly the dogs react and bites without thinking about it.
To teach children about dog behaviour, Shirley has written two books. One is for children aged one–to–four and the other is for children aged four–to–ten.
More information is available here: www.shirleyking.co.uk
