Dogs and babies Not always cute

Hi Mia,

Oh, Arf! Based on the way I treated him, its a good thing he was stuffed. I remember dragging him around by his leg (or maybe it was his ear) so we could "spend time" together. 

Given he was a stuffed animal, I have to admit its pretty cute. Nowadays, it seems like one of the functions of social media is sharing cute stuff. You cant go a day without seeing something posted, tweeted or shared that elicits an, "Aww cute" response.

Some photos mix and match baby animals:

Baby animals get us every time

Others photos are more in the cute-weird category:

I see a piece of strawberry and broccoli on that plate. Do you?

Then there are the dog and baby pictures. On our Do You Believe in Dog? Facebook page, I posted the below picture. We got 37 likes, 27 shares and 1, “Awwww!" comment. This picture also appeared elsewhere on Facebook, and I took a screen shot to capture all the attention it received (listed below): 1,658 likes and 464 shares.

In one sense, when it comes to dogs and babies, the above picture is something we are very accustomed to seeing, a gaggle of mushy cuteness.

But theres more to the story, and this is clearly where you are going in your next installment, The Science Surrounding Kids and Dogs: The Ugly (Part 3)

Kids are bitten by dogs and some babies don’t become kids because of an interaction they had with a dog.

This is a fact. A really upsetting fact.

• A retrospective study examined 341 children who had been bitten by a dog, and they found: “Incidence was highest in 1-year-old patients and decreased with increasing age.” 

• Another study found: “Children younger than 6 years constituted 52.8% (n = 204) of the sample. As compared with older children, a higher proportion of younger children were bitten by their family dog whose rabies shots were up to date.”  

• And another: “Children younger than 5 years represented 34% of all dog bite victims, but 50% of all children requiring hospitalization. Thirty-seven percent of all children admitted to the hospital were bitten by a family dog. The cost of direct medical care during the study was $2.15 million.”

These figures are quite painful. Even writing them sucks. But the numbers tell us something. 

• First, some families will have a traumatic experience as the result of an interaction between a dog and a child.

• Second, many of the dogs doing the biting are family dogs.

• Finally, young children constitute a high proportion of children being bitten (and often by the family dog).

Putting it together: Images of dogs and babies
Madeline Gabriel is a San Diego-based Certified Professional Dog Trainer who holds training classes about dogs and babies. On her blog, she recently took a look at ubiquitous dog and baby photos, exploring whether “Cute” Dog and Baby Photos Feed the Fantasy?
  
Photos of dogs and kids often suggest that dogs and kids are just supposed to be "best friends," that dogs should somehow be comfortable having their space invaded, their toys handled, their food bowls touched and their tails tugged.

Gabriel points out, "parents don’t know about safety with dogs and babies and toddlers.  Why should they when our society chooses to surround itself with imagery showing dogs and babies as “best friends?”  You cannot pick up a children’s book with dogs in it without finding talking animals or smiley cartoon dogs who seemingly love being hugged and [their] space invaded by babies.  We have chosen to sacrifice the real to the fantasy.

The price of fantasy is being paid every day by children and dogs and the families that love them.  Hardly ever does a baby or child die from a dog bite (that’s why a single incident will be news across the country), but even a less serious bite is devastating to a family.  Tearful clients tell me, “If only I knew, I would have done it differently…”

She continues, “No one purposely puts babies with dogs they think will hurt them.  The more a dog is tolerant, the more liberties will be allowed.  It’s human nature to believe what’s in front of your eyes (“He’s good with the baby!”), particularly when spurred on by a society that rewards and covets “cute” dog and baby interactions.  That is, until it goes wrong and then you’re spurned — as if you did anything different than millions of other parents who cling to the fantasy.” 

In her follow-up post, Gabriel gives examples of photos of dogs with babies and kids that dont foster the fantasy: each has personal space, no hands are in the dogs face and dogs are not cornered or smothered.

This photo would not have made Gabriels list:

Feeding the fantasy?

Looking forward to your take on this topic!

Julie

Recommended reading 
Madeline Gabriel. 2010. Good Dogs Don’t Bite Children, Do They? Dogs and Babies Blog


References
Madeline Gabriel. 2012. “Cute” Dog and Baby Photos Feed the Fantasy. Dogs and Babies Blog 

Madeline Gabriel. 2012. Should You Share That Cute Dog and Baby Photo? Dogs and Babies Blog

BERNARDO L.M., GARDNER M.J., ROSENFIELD R.L., COHEN B. & PITETTI R. (2002). A comparison of dog bite injuries in younger and older children treated in a pediatric emergency department, Pediatric Emergency Care, 18 (3) 247-249. DOI: 10.1097/00006565-200206000-00024

Daniels D.M., Ritzi R.B.S., O’Neil J. & “Tres Scherer L.R. (2009). Analysis of Nonfatal Dog Bites in Children, The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care, 66 (Supplement) S17-S22. DOI: 10.1097/TA.0b013e3181937925

Schalamon J. (2006). Analysis of Dog Bites in Children Who Are Younger Than 17 Years, PEDIATRICS, 117 (3) e374-e379. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2005-1451
© Julie Hecht 2012 

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The Science Surrounding Children Dogs Part 2 The Bad

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving Julie!

(source)

I’m not exactly sure what that means, as we don’t celebrate it in Australia, but I hope you had a great time with your family and friends all the same!

Thanks for all those fantastic resources you included in your last blog post. It was also great to see some extras posted by readers in the comments section. 

(source)

Last time I looked at ‘The Good’ of some the science surrounding children and dogs. This post, it’s time to cover some of the ‘The Bad’. 

What can possibly be bad about children and dogs? Well, dogs don’t live as long as us, for one.

When dogs die

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Having established last time that dogs can benefit kids’ confidence, self-belief, trust, respect and heaps of other positive attitudes and behaviours, I was left wondering how losing a pet dog impacts children. Loss of a companion animal can be a devastating event for people of any age.

Humans don’t all experience grief equally.

Our understanding of death is linked to our developmental state, but young children can still feel pain at the loss of a family dog. For many children, the death of a pet dog will be their first experience with this kind of loss and grief. Pet dogs can be almost-constant companions for children, and have been assigned a role in reflected appraisal similar to that of a best friend.

Psychologists encourage parents/guardians to explain death to kids sensitively and with honesty. Adults should answer questions simply, using clear and accurate information and avoid the desire to ‘protect’ children from death by hiding the truth of a pet’s illness or euthanasia. This is because children with active imaginations may create scenarios about the death that are far worse than reality. 

Adults should allow children to express their grief (through verbal, artistic or written expression; reading stories about the death of pets, etc.), acknowledging the importance of the relationship lost (rather than trivializing the death or running to buy a new puppy) and helping children to understand that grief is a normal and natural emotion that helps us cope with death.

Sometimes bad can be good

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Some psychologists believe that such trauma (with a successful associated recovery) can strengthen our capacity to deal with future stress and adversity. 

This is referred to as psychological resilience and is considered a desirable and healthy process as it enables a person, or in this case a child, to develop coping strategies and support networks (friends, adults, family, etc.) that will serve them in difficult times later in life.

Your dog is a zoo-

Zoo noses? (source)

Its true (when youre using zo/zoo- as a prefix to indicate animals are involved). And its about noses. Not noses-noses, that would be silly. Im talking about Zoonoses. As in diseases that can transfer from animals to people. As in from a dog to a child. Theyre not pretty. 

Research has shown that people can be generally uninformed about some of the most common zoonotic diseases (e.g. common roundworm eggs readily transfer between dogs and people; the worm larvae can decide to live in the back of childrens eyes which can lead to blindness - people should know that!)

(source)

I suggest that if any of your dog-owning friends with children arent aware of the risks of zoonotic diseases, they run an online search for dogs zoonosis [insert country of residence] so they can read up on what parasite control and other measures can be used in their neck of the globe to reduce the risk of zoonoses. 

(source)

Maintaining good child and dog health and hygiene should be a no-brainer. Did you know dogs can catch things from kids too? Thats called reverse zoonosis. 

And to think sharing is something I normally praise my toddler for!

I hope you’ll grit your teeth and stick with me for my third post about the science surrounding children and dogs. 

You’ve seen The Good and now The Bad – next time, Im going to bring out The Ugly. Ill also touch on what science has to say about our childhood experience with dogs influencing us as adults. 

What do you reckon your childhood experiences with Arf contributed to your adult attitudes?

Take care,

Mia

Further reading:

Gerwolls M.K. & Labott S.M. (1994). Adjustment to the Death of a Companion Animal, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 7 (3) 172-187. DOI: 10.2752/089279394787001826

Serpell J.A. (1981). Childhood Pets and their Influence on Adults Attitudes, Psychological Reports, 49 (2) 651-654. DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1981.49.2.651

Davis J.H. (1987). Preadolescent Self-Concept Development and Pet Ownership, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 1 (2) 90-94. DOI: 10.2752/089279388787058614

Van Houtte B.A. & Jarvis P.A. (1995). The role of pets in preadolescent psychosocial development, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 16 (3) 463-479. DOI: 10.1016/0193-3973(95)90030-6

Bryant B.K. (1990). The Richness of the Child-Pet Relationship: A Consideration of Both Benefits and Costs of Pets to Children, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 3 (4) 253-261. DOI: 10.2752/089279390787057469

Kaufman K.R. & Kaufman N.D. (2006). And Then the Dog Died, Death Studies, 30 (1) 61-76. DOI: 10.1080/07481180500348811

Bonanno G.A. (2004). Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events?, American Psychologist, 59 (1) 20-28. DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20

Bingham G.M., Budke C.M. & Slater M.R. (2010). Knowledge and perceptions of dog-associated zoonoses: Brazos County, Texas, USA, Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 93 (2-3) 211-221. DOI: 10.1016/j.prevetmed.2009.09.019

© Mia Cobb 2012

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Dog Training Clicker

Clicker Dog Training

The newest dog training craze is clicker dog training. A clicker is a small rectangular plastic box with a metal button on top that clicks, hence the name clicker. It’s the type of training that the dog decides whether or not it suits him. There have been a lot of success stories with clickers, but with my dog he just didn’t want to know!

Researchers in dog studies believe that the clicker promotes enforced training, without punishment! As we all know when we do something good and get rewarded for it we are going to do the same again, a dog thinks the same way. Dogs learn through consequences, if they do something and it earns them a treat and praise they are going to want to do it again because they like this consequence. If they do something that you don’t like and they get ignored or said no to in a strict voice they know that they aren’t going to get any treats so are not going to do it again.

Clicker dog training works in such a way it reinforces good behaviour. If your dog sits, click and give him a treat. The next time he sits do the same but don’t say anything to him. He will soon realise that when he sits he will get a treat and hear a click, so when you eventually come to click before he sits he knows to sit. Its not all that confusing when you think about it.

Punishment is not used with clicker dog training as researchers believe that although punishment does stop some bad behaviour it may also create another unwanted behaviour. Punishment is almost always carried out after the dog has done something wrong so dogs see punishment as a random consequence therefore punishment doesn’t really solve anything.

Clicker dog training is not only used or dogs! It is widely used for other animals such as dolphins and horses. It is a widely practiced training method and does produce results; if carried out properly.

Some of the best quality dog resources and articles can be found online at MDarmas Dog Site. Our visitors recommend this website each time they try to search for dog training tips, advice and insider secrets from experts. You can search thru the form by keywords on that site or just browse their library of dog-related articles by experts in various fields of american eskimo breed dog.

Cheers

MDarma

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