Why You MUST Include the Kids in Your Dog’s Obedience Training
It’s such an exciting time when your family gets a new puppy or dog! Whether it’s your first one or you are expanding your canine family, a new family pet can bring so much joy, especially to the kids. And while you should encourage your children to love and care for the dog, it is equally important to insist that they be a part of the dog obedience training. Dogs who do not learn to obey the children in a family can cause numerous issues that become harder to break as time goes on.
It’s important to teach children about a dog’s natural behavior. Just like people, understanding where someone comes from helps us understand their choices and behaviors. Dogs are descendants of wolves and, depending on the breed, still carry many of their underlying personality traits and tendencies. Introducing your children to “pack mentality” and the importance of establishing leadership early in the relationship is one the most important steps you can take to ensure a healthy relationship between dog and child.
Dog obedience training reminds children to respect the dog. Boundaries are a vital ingredient to every healthy relationship. While you are teaching your children about the proper ways to ensure the dog respects them and sees them as a leader, you are also teaching them that their dog is smart, capable and has natural tendencies that must be recognized and respected.
Positive communication avoids disrespect, abuse and lashing out. We all know what it feels like to be misunderstood – unable to get our point across. It is frustrating, maddening and can cause us to react in inappropriate ways. Communication is everything in a relationship. It is no different in the relationship between dog and owner. If a child doesn’t know what commands and hand gestures will prompt the desired response out of their dog, they may react in anger, verbally and even physically. This is very unhealthy and can quickly harm the relationship. Likewise, if a child cannot read a dog’s communication signals, the dog may lash out violently, hurting the child physically and emotionally. Establishing positive communication early in your dog obedience training is foundational.
Above all, dog obedience training teaches your children about responsibility. Parents often joke about the fact they will end up taking care of the dog that their child so desperately wants. While we all chuckle, the truth of that statement is a bit sad, because your child is missing out on a very valuable lesson in responsibility. At some point in their life, they will be responsible for people other than themselves. Caring for a dog is ultimately caring for a life – a responsibility that children should definitely be a part of.
Including your children in your dog obedience training will ensure that they stay safe and establish a positive, long lasting relationship with your canine family member, while maintaining peace and harmony in your home. Enjoy your new family member!
Image Sources: (pixabay.com – labeled for reuse)
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Great post – it’s a very important message!
It’s actually surprising how many family’s have dogs and kids that don’t respect each other.
I find it amazing that there’s so many people who don’t even try to train their dogs properly. It’s so important. Hey, thanks for your visit! So glad you stopped by. 🙂
I agree it is very important to include kids in the obedience training for your dog. I have kids and it is hard to train a dog when everyone is giving it different commands to do the same thing. Eventually the dog won’t listen because it gets confused. I am on it to make sure we each use the same voice command or hand gesture for each thing we want the dogs to do.
Good! I’m glad you’re on it, Sandy. It’s important to start correctly from the get-go. Poor dog wouldn’t know which way to go. Thanks for that, and thanks for visiting my blog today. 🙂
You are right on the money with this. There is so much kids can learn from being responsible for a pet.
That’s true, Carol. Not only that, it’s so confusing for the dog to have to listen to and obey one or two people, and not have to obey one or two others. Thanks for your visit today. I hope you’ll come again soon. 🙂
It does sound that like it’s very important to include the children. My husband and one of my kids actually want a small dog so we’re going to need these thoughts in the future. Thanks!
I’ll bet it’s your boy that wants a puppy, am I right? I adore your kids. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by, Salma. I always appreciate it when you do.
I have never owned a dog (or a cat). But you are right; this is an excellent time to teach responsibility and caring to children. I’ve seen several instances where children never learned respect for dogs and mistreated them. Some even think it is “cute” enough to post pictres of same on Facebook. Sad!
Yes, it disturbs me to see kids (or anyone) abusing an animal. Especially if they post it on Facebook. You’ve never owned a dog or a cat? You’re missing out! 🙂 Thanks for your visit today. Take care.
I think we failed at this each time we got a dog. lol. However, they quickly learned who would feed them off their plate.
Oh yeah, it doesn’t take a dog long to learn what they can get away with, especially when it comes to food. 🙂