This education programme is for the parents, teachers and caregivers of young children. The 30 minute DVD and 40 page booklet includes chapters on the following: Socializing Your Dog, The Pack, How to Understand What is going on in a dog’s head, Dog Territorial Aggression, Dog Body Language, Bringing a Dog into your Family, Dogs and Babies/Cats and Babies, Control and Supervision, Dogs and Visiting Children, Meeting Unfamiliar Dogs, Disease Risks, The Costs and Rewards. Also included is information on Responsibilities to Your Dog and to the Community.
The aim of this programme is to teach parents, caregivers and teachers how to create a safer environment for children around dogs. The approach we have taken is realistically the “Fence at the top of the cliff”, rather than the ‘Ambulance at the bottom”. Prevention is far better than cure. Parental and adult supervision is vital.
We recognise the need for a well managed environment where young children and pets, especially dogs, can co-exist in harmony. Our experience has shown us, when investigating dog bites on young children, that in many cases the attack would have been avoidable but for the lack of timely parental supervision and a well managed home environment. A popular misconception is that ‘roaming dogs’ in public areas cause most of these problems, but the reality is that by far the majority of dog attacks involve the family pet, or a dog who is known to the child and the family concerned.
We do not make any claims that if a parent or caregiver follows this programme they will be able to guarantee their child will not become a dog bite statistic. We do however suggest that if you follow this programme, and understand the contents - then put it into practice and create a safer-managed dog-child environment in your home and property, then you will reduce the risk of your child being hurt in this manner.
We have also included a paragraph or two about risks involving cats, as these pets can also cause problems if not properly managed.
Above all, we believe that if a child grows up in an environment alongside family pets, then he/she will learn to love, care for and to respect animals, learning valuable life-lessons in the process. Your pets will naturally respond to this with love, loyalty and affection in return. It only takes one unguarded moment, or mismanaged situation to destroy this positive relationship.
Family pets and children can be wonderful together. However each year many children and adults are injured by their own dogs, dogs they know and stray or unfamiliar dogs. We hope this programme will give valuable information for managing your dog in a family with children and also help prevent your young child or yourself being attacked or bitten by a dog.
The key factor in almost every scenario is adult supervision.