The 3 Most Important Things to Teach Your Kids About Dog Safety

Facts:

There are 4.7 million dog bite victims annually in the USA. This number continues to rise each year. Children are the most frequent victims, most of who have been bit in the face. The vast majority of biting dogs (77%) belong to the victim's family or a friend.

The 3 Most Important Things to Teach Your Kids

1. Dogs Don’t Like Hugs and Kisses – Teach your kids not to hug or kiss a dog on the face.  Hugging the family dog or face-to-face contact are common causes of bites to the face.  Instead, teach kids to scratch the dog on the chest or the side of the neck.
2. Be a Tree if a Strange Dog Approaches – Teach kids to stand still, like a tree. Trees are boring and the dog will eventually go away.  This works for strange dogs and anytime the family dog gets too frisky or becomes aggressive. if being biten, drop loke a rock, protecting your head and face.
3. Never Tease a Dog – and never disturb a dog that’s sleeping, eating, in a car, behind a fence, is tied, has a bone or is protecting something. 

The 2 Most Important Things Parents Can Do

1. Supervise – Don’t assume your dog is good with kids.  If a toddler must interact with your dog, you should have your hands on the dog too.  Even if your dog is great with kids and has never bitten – why take a chance?
2. Train the dog – Take your dog to obedience classes where positive-reinforcement is used.  Never pin, shake, choke, hold the dog down or roll the dog over to teach it a lesson.  Dogs treated this way are likely to turn their aggression on weaker family members.  Involve older children in training the family dog while supervising.  Don’t allow children to punish the dog.  Condition the dog to enjoy the presence and actions of children using positive experiences.