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Children and Dogs

Avoiding Dog Bites

"Children and Dogs should Never be left unsupervised"

In addition to teaching your children how to behave around dogs, the most important thing you can do is to teach your dog 'bite inhibition'. Bite/snatch inhibition is one of the most important exercises we can teach our dogs, whether it is a puppy or an adult dog. This is an exercise that, once taught, should be reinforced throughout the dog’s life. By teaching and maintaining these simple exercises you will ensure that your dog ends up with a ‘soft bite' – the dog learns to inhibit the force of its bite’ and if the circumstances do occur where a bite is forthcoming, the odds are that it will be a lot less severe. If you are thinking about getting a puppy, ensure you take it to puppy school where exercises such as those appearing below will be taught and practiced on a regular basis.

These exercises are based on the relationship between a whelping bitch and her puppies as well the play relationship between puppies. When the teeth of a whelping pup start to appear and it suddenly bites down hard on the teat, the mother normally gets up and walks away, sometimes with a vocal reprimand to the pup. The lesson that is learnt – bite too hard and you do without! The same sort of situation occurs between 2 or more puppies playing. If one of the pups bites down too hard, the one that is nipped will yelp and dash away – again the same message is given – you hurt me so I won’t play with you anymore!

The last thing that anybody wants is to have a dog that snatches food out of our hands, especially if we have children. So often when we offer a dog a treat, you are lucky to come away with your fingers intact! By teaching the following exercises the dog learns to have control over his jaws. This does not mean that he will never bite, but he does learn to control the force of the bite thus reducing the chance of serious damage. This exercise must ALWAYS be taught on its own. In training we train with a lure in our hand to entice the dog into the heel position and if you started shouting at a dog for snatching you would simply destroy the training side and your relationship. If your dog snatches at your fingers when training, just hit yourself over the head with the newspaper for not practising these exercise enough!

Bite inhibition may help to lessen the severity of a bite in the situation of a dog fight, both from the point of view of the other dog and that of redirected aggression (in the case of trying to stop a dog fight and the dog turns and bites you by accident)

Exercise 1 – Bite Inhibition - Taking food from the hand gently

Correct

Dont hold the food pointing upwards

Hold the sausage downwards slightly extending from fingers

After you have done this several times and the dog is gaining an understanding that grabbing at food results in both you and the food leaving, you can start on the other exercises. In some cases it is necessary to do both of these at the same time.
HOW TO:

A soft treat here is preferable to start with, something along the lines of a chicken Vienna sausage.
Hold the treat in your hand, with the top end of the sausage just sticking out and offer the end of the sausage to the dog.
Allow him to nibble and lick it and praise him quietly while he is doing this and even bring in a command of ‘gently’ or similar.
If he snatches at the sausages or bites down hard, shout OUCH! in the loudest voice you can muster and storm away from him with your arms folded. It doesn’t matter if it did not hurt; it is the effect we are going for.
Your dog may look totally amazed and try to follow you. Turn away a few times ignoring him. Then ask him to sit and once again offer the treat, repeating the sequence over and over if he snatches or bites hard and praising him quietly if he takes it gently, by saying ‘good gently’ or similar.
The importance here is the timing (exactly when he bites down too hard), the marching away (it must not be a casual walk, really mean it and fold your arms and appear furious, and lastly the shout - really sound like it was unbelievable sore).
As your dog gets better with the soft food you can ask for a softer and softer bite, and then start bringing in some harder food, such as a dog biscuit. When this happens go right back to the beginning, remembering that there will be more likelihood of him biting harder to begin with.
As soon as your pup/dog has an understanding of what you expect, I would then start to feed it all meals from by hand only for a period of time. This will really reinforce the bite inhibition.

Exercise 2 – Bite Inhibition - Reducing the force of the mouthing

It is all very well for our little bundle of fluff to chew on us as a 2kg pup, but what happens when Fido weighs 45kg and has big teeth and doesn’t know how to inhibit his bite! I am not saying that a dog should not mouth us at all – of course they should, especially when they are puppies, otherwise they will never learn how to inhibit the force of their bite on human skin. A puppy should be allowed to mouth up so that it learns how to inhibit its bite, up to the ago of about 4 months – after that mouthing should not be allowed at all, unless you are engaging in play fighting exercises to reinforce the bite inhibition which should be totally controlled and structured.

As the puppy/dog mouths on you and it is a bit too hard, say a loud ‘ouch’ such as above and bring your hand/arm upwards and close to your body and pretend that it really hurt, even going to the extent of saying ‘Oh that was really sore’. Your dog will probably exhibit a lesser look of amazement and try to lick you. Take a very short time out by turning away, then turn back to your pup/dog and ask it to come to you sit then down as a way of apology and then continue playing. The dog also comes to realize that biting too hard brings a good game to an end.

After the pup/dog has 'mouthed' you, say 'ouch' and hold your arm upwards, pretending to be hurt. Look at the look of amazement on Brady's face - he knows it wasn't hard! Having grandchildren, I worked this over and over (and did I say over!) with Brady - within a short period of time he would only accept treats from hands with his lips. This is an exercise that should be practiced throughout the dog's life to ensure it never forgets!

If the pup/dog shows no remorse whatsoever, then take it a step further and march away and close the door behind you. Dogs hate this as we are taking away their most valuable possession – you! Give about a 30 second time out behind the door, then come back and do as above and continue the game. Do not make the time out longer than 30 seconds as otherwise the pup/dog will not associate the ‘time out’ with its past behaviour. Do this several times in a play session to really reinforce the new behaviour.

Other ways to help prevent dog bites - where the dog is concerned - prevention is better than cure

Sterilize your dog (see notes on sterilization). Sterilized dogs tend to fight and roam less and are less likely to bite.
Teach your dog appropriate behaviour and incorporate exercises such as food bowl exercises and the swap command as well as general 'house rules' for the dog to adhere too. All dogs should receive some basic training to ensure that they are happy, well behaved members of your family. Prevention is better than cure and a single lesson wherein you are taught all the basics is an investment that could save your child being bitten. Link to Puppy Starter Lesson
Be cautious. If you are not sure as to how your dog will react to a new child, person or baby visiting, be vigilant and supervise the situation, initially keeping the dog on lead to see how it reacts.
Socialize your dog right from puppy hood and keep it up. A well socialized dog seldom bites as it is used to different situations, people and other dogs.

Teaching your Children to be safe around dogs

A dog is not a toy - it comes with a set of very sharp teeth in its mouth, and all children should be taught how to approach and interact with a dog. After all, would you give your child a knife to play with and then leave it alone? - I think not! I am not saying that children and dogs should not interact, of course they should, but the emphases is on educating both your dog (from puppy hood) and the children and as a parent, ensuring that the interaction is always a safe, supervised one.

We do not have statistics for SA, but in the USA, more than 4 million people are bitten by dogs, the majority of these are children who are under the age of 13yrs. What is so sad is that the majority of these bites were probably totally avoidable!

The first thing to do is if you have children running around in the garden with the family dog running with them - take the dog away immediately or keep it with you while the children run and play. Think what a running child looks like to a dog - prey - a guinea fowl running flapping its wings! All is usually fine until the excitement levels run too high, and that is when accidents often happen.

The majority of dogs only bite if they are placed in a situation where they feel threatened. The following are points that will help you to ensure that your child knows what to do and should be practiced on a regular basis:-

Never bother a dog that is eating, sleeping, looking after puppies or who is possessive over any object or toy (if you dog is possessive over any of these, help should be obtained to remedy the situation)
Don't pick up a dog. Cuddling a dog is fine, but should only be done with adult supervision with a dog that is familiar with this type of behaviour.
Don't stick your face into a dogs face.
Always approach a dog (even your own) is a slight curve, avoiding eye contact and make sure the dog sees you approaching. To dogs, staring directly at it or approaching in a straight line can be viewed as aggressive behaviour.Dont run up to a dog screaming or shouting.
After approaching as above, hold out your fingers and let the dog smell them before any more interaction. If the dog turns its head away, this is viewed as a 'calming signal' from the dog - it does not want to interact - simply back off.
If the dog does want to interact, slide your hand down and stroke under the chin, not on top of the head or on the neck. Patting a dog on the head or neck may indicate to the dog that you want to hurt him or are being dominant.
Never tease, annoy, pull ears, hair or tails.
If the dog has got hold of a child's possession, the parent should remove the possession, not the child.
Don't go anywhere near a strange dog.
If the dog is with a person, permission should be asked from the person if the dog can be petted - not all dogs are child or even adult friendly!
Never try to pat a dog that is contained behind a fence or in a car or tied up.. Dogs in these situations often regard the area as 'theirs' and may exhibit reactive behaviour.
Don't take a wagging tail as a reassurance that a dog is friendly. The tail wag is the most ambiguous of dog language and can mean more than one thing - the whole body needs to be looked at to see what the dog's behaviour is actually indicating.
Don't approach a dog that slinks to the ground with its tail between its legs or with the tail wagging at a low angle. This could very well be a nervous/fearful dog and if it does not have an avenue of escape open, may bite to defend itself.
Don't approach a dog that is standing 'high' - feet planted firmly on the ground, tail held high (may be wagging) and staring at you.. This is a sign of a dog that is not at all happy with your approach. You may even see that the hair on the back of the neck is raised (pilo- erection) or the dog may lift its lip or even growl.
Don't play with any dog unless supervised by an adult.
Avoid any games with the dog that involve 'rough play'.
Don't walk into a friends garden if the dog is running loose - wait for the adult to put the dog away or to supervise.

What to do if you see the dog is not happy with you approaching or tries to bite.

Keep quiet and calm and DONT run, scream or shout.. Stand still and then slowly walk away backwards, avoiding looking directly at the dog.
If the dog does attack, try to put something such as a toy, jacket etc in front of you for the dog to grab hold of first.
Try to put an object such as a tree, car, bench between you and the dog.
If you are knocked to the ground or the dog charges at you and you cant get away, DONT scream or shout, lie on the floor and curl up into a ball as tightly as you can putting your hands over your ears and your chin on your chest and try not to move till help arrives. If you show no reaction to the dog it will be more likely to turn and leave you alone. If this does happen, do not move until the dog is well out of sight. When help does arrive, if the dog is still there, wait for the dog to be taken away before you move.