Supervising dogs and children is something that has been advocated for many years by many organizations and dog behavior professionals. However, as much as supervising dogs and children may appear to be a good safety measure, it’s important to understand that it’s not a guarantee against dog bites. Dog bites can happen in a split second and those supervising may not have expected the bite to occur in a specific context or situation. Statistics indeed show that dog bites occur despite the fact that parents or custodians were supervising dogs and children.
Supervising Dogs and Children
Parental supervision of the interactions between dogs and children is fundamentally important from when children are babies up to their school-age years. When watching children interact with dogs, parents are often on the lookout for two things: behaviors carried out by children that might bother the dog and signs that the dog is getting irritated.
Behaviors carried out by children that may potentially bother dogs are often those interpreted as potentially irritating by those supervising. These encompass behaviors of the child that may prompt swift parent or dog owner interventions because perceived as irritating to the dog such as the child wrestling with the dog, attempting to ride the dog, pulling fur or playing with the dog’s ears.
Watching the dog’s body language during the interaction is considered an important facet of supervision. Many dog owners feel confident enough to be able to recognize signs that the dog is getting irritated by the interaction. A tense body, growl or even air snap is something most parents recognize as a sign of an interaction that may potentially go bad.
Good But Not Enough
Statistics show that dog bites most commonly affect children under the age of 12 and the bites most often happen in the face. This finding emphasizes that interactions between dogs and children require close supervision. When a bite occurs though, many people wonder whether the parents were supervising.
However, statistics show a different story. Statistics show that when children are bitten by dogs, parents (43 percent) and dog owners (62 percent) were actually present during the incident!
If supervision is the goal to prevent dog bite incidents, why isn’t it working? Why are children still getting bitten if supervision was taking place?
At a closer insight, there may be several dynamics at play which may provide some explanations. I have come up with the following scenarios that may have caused the incidents despite close supervision.
1) dog bites happen very quickly 2) dog bites are not always preceded by obvious signs 3) dog owners/parents may fail to recognize behaviors that children carry out which may be perceived as irritating to the dog 4) dog owners/parents may not be actively supervising and 5) dogs may not have been well socialized to children. Let’s take a closer look at these possible dynamics.
Dog Bites Happen Quickly!
It is often underestimated how quickly a dog bite may happen. Parents may turn away their gaze a second to slap a mosquito off their arm, and the next thing they hear is their child crying because a dog bite has occurred. Even if parents are within an arm’s reach, they may not be able to intervene quickly enough to prevent a dog bite from happening.
[adinserter block=”2″]Dog Bites Aren’t Always Preceded by Obvious Signs
Stiffnesss, a low guttural growl and an air snap are some of the most obvious signs that parents and dog owners may easily recognize as a sign of potential inpending bite; however, dog bites aren’t always preceded by obvious signs.
Some dogs may give out very subtle signs before the bite. Subtle or misinterpreted signs of potential trouble that may be missed by dog owners include the dog licking his own nose or the dog licking his own lips, yawning, turning the head and showing the white of the eyes.
Some dogs may even fail to give out any warning signs at all preceding a bite and are therefore often accused of “biting out of the blue.” This may happen in the case of a dog with a past history of being punished for growling. The dog may manage to skip the growl and just go straight to a bite.
“”Punishing a dog for growling is like taking the batteries out of your smoke detector. You don’t want to hear the noise, but the danger is still there.”~ Yamei Ross, dog trainer
Failure to Recognize Troublesome Behaviors
Many videos of dog and babies/children interactions are often shared on YouTube and these videos may make many experienced dog owners and behavior professionals cringe. The videos often show children riding dogs as if they were ponies or doing certain things to the dog (like pulling ears, pulling the tail) who appears to patiently endure them.
Fortunately, these cases go well, and there’s no bad ending in the interaction, but things may be insidiously brewing until that day the dog has had enough. Despite the negative publicity, such footage of videos may act as a wake-up call when experienced dog owners or professionals point out the inherent, associated risks in the comments sections. Sharing of such videos on social media often takes place purposely to educate about the risks of certain types of dog and children interactions.
When thinking about possible bites to children, dog owners often imagine that they may take place in precise circumstances such as a child stepping on the dog’s tail, the child pulling the dog’s hair or the child provoking the dog in some way such as removing a bone or toy from the dog; however, in many instances, dog bites occur when children carry out certain behavors that are far more “innocent.”
According to a study focusing on dog bites to the face, it was found that out of 132 bites, 76 percent were triggered by bending over a dog, 19 percent were triggered by putting the face near the dog’s face and 5 percent were triggered by gazing into the dog’s eyes. Many of these behaviors are often unintently carried out by children, particularly because their short stature puts them directly close to the dog’s face.
[adinserter block=”1″]Lack of Active Supervision
When dogs and children are put together, it’s fundamental that the supervision is of the active type, not the passive type where parents or dog owners chit-chat with others and observe the interactions through their peripheral vision or look away repeatedly for brief times.
The eyes should always be entirely pointed towards dog and child. It’s a good idea to be actively monitoring the dog and child in ready reach (the dog should always wear a collar so he/she can be easily redirected and moved away as needed and the dog should have ideally been desenstized and counterconditioned to collar grabs in advance).
Having an extra pair of eyes during dog and child interactions is always helpful as one parent may focus on watching the dog while the other may focuse on the child. Should an interaction start turning a bit worrisome, one parent may redirect the dog, while the other may redirect the child. Even better, children should be taught how to properly interact with family dogs so to lower the chances for risky interactions and dogs should be trained to quickly move away as needed by responding to their recall or other re-direction cues.
Lack of Socialization
From a dog’s persepective, children are quite different from adult people. Children move erratically and unexpectedly, they are clumsy, their voices are acute and their stature puts them closer to their faces, leading to a direct stare. On top of that children often want to do things to dogs such as hug the dog or kiss it.
Not all dogs are well-accepting of children. And just because a dog seems to enjoy being around people, doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll like children. While asking dog owners whether the child may pet the dog is good practice, not all dog owners have a deep understandig whether their dog is well-accepting of children. A dog may do well with children he is familiar with but may not do well with an unknown child.
Sometimes (but not always), dogs who are not well-accepting of children are dogs who haven’t been socialized with children. They are not used to being around children and children may appear very peculiar to them. This may lead to defensive aggression and unfortunate events. Caution is needed when a child wants to interact with a stranger dog or when a newly rescued dog is brought to a home with children.
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References:
- Vet J. 2015 Dec;206(3):284-8. doi: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2015.10.021. Epub 2015 Oct 22.Human behavior preceding dog bites to the face. Rezac P1, Rezac K2, Slama P2.