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Could you help me understand something about dogs?
Hi! I don't usually post on the pets board, but I have a question for those who are knowledgeable about dogs. Today at my four year old DD's nursery school one of the children had requested to bring their pet dog for show and tell. The theme was "something soft, hard, rough, etc you can touch." The teacher said yes, and the child's mom brought the dog to school. The dog looked to be some kind of lab mix. The mom brought him out onto the playground on a leash and all the children were a distance away, sitting down, and waiting to be told they could go pet the dog. When the little boy who brought the dog saw him he ran up to him and the dog seemed very happy (wagging tail, etc). Then, the mom signaled and the other children got up and went toward the dog. Some of them may have been running a little. Anyway at first the dog seemed fine, but after maybe 30 seconds he lunged at one of the kids with a fierce growl and it took all the mom's strength to hold him back. He almost bit her face. Thank goodness he didn't!
My question is, obviously we all erred in judgement on this one. I'm sure he is normally a lovely dog and the mom never expected that reaction. She was very upset and apologetic after it happened. What would make the dog react that way, from a dog behavior stand point? Do you think he saw all the kids coming toward him as a threat to his owner maybe? Or just wigged out because of the unfamiliarity of all of it. I trusted the mom's judgement because my DD was with the kids too. And I never ordinarily let her walk right up to a dog and stick her hand or face close to it. But in this situation I deferred to people I thought knew more than I did. Scary! Anyway...would there be any safe way to do this? What do you think was going on in the dog's mind?
Re: Could you help me understand something about dogs?
The dog was in a new environment with lots of strangers rushing him, who may or may not have been petting him nicely, with no chance of escape. Bad idea.
Dogs communicate with body language that human usually ignore. Stick a leash on him and surround him with a bunch of loud strangers, and he has no other way to communicate his discomfort except to growl or nip. As scary as it seemed, don't underestimate how much control a dog has--it was probably intended as a very clear warning, and not a bite.
I'm sure the dog had never acted that way before, but I'm also sure the dog hasn't been put in that stressful of an environment before. My dogs are great with kids, but I'd never allow kids to rush at my dogs like that. I have them stand back, then greet my dogs one at a time.
The safe way to greet a dog is calmly, after asking the owner if you may pet them. Let the dog sniff you, then give some chin scratches. Don't pat a dog on its head, it annoys them (like when your hand bounce up and down....rubs are ok though, but above the head does make some dogs nervous). Bonus points if your body is angled so you're not face to face.
Im glad no one was hurt, and I do hope that little girl wasn't traumatized. Mom should have never put her dog in that position.
Have you seen my monkey?
Thanks, this makes a lot of sense. I figured he probably tried to tell us he was anxious before growling, but of course none of us knew what we were looking at. I've read this about cats, and we have them, so when kids come over and are petting them I always say, "if he starts "thwaping" his tail on the ground stop petting him, he's over stimulated." And you are probably right, maybe he wasn't really trying to bite anyone but just get them to back off (it worked!). However he could have nipped one of the kids in the process, since they were all basically at his eye level. And I'm not sure any of them had started petting him yet, since it happened basically right as they got to him.
Thanks for the tips on petting a dog. I will remember that. And I think the mom felt awful right away and was kind of like,The "why did I do that!" I think she is a "dog person" and this was probably a momentary lapse in judgement. The kids actually seemed fine afterward...I was more shaken up, thinking about the "what if's".
On another note, my mom bought this book for my LO and it's really good (although a little advanced for him right now):
http://www.amazon.com/May-Pet-Your-Dog-How/dp/0618510346
It might be a good one for the class to read and help them understand the best way to greet a dog.
My son's preschool has a "bring your pet to school" day and I've always been uncomfortable with it. I've never done it. It's fine if the pet is a bunny, but dogs make me nervous in that situation. I know mine is still way too young to be reliable being bum-rushed by that many kids, and he's a dog that loves children.
What you describe is really a shame, because that could have been a wonderful learning opportunity for all the kids. If the teacher had taken a few moments to talk about the correct way to approach a dog, and then each child had been invited up one at a time, I'll bet it would have gone beautifully.
For Kindle users, this is a free download and is also good read for older kids and adults.
I agree with the pps. It was a new and stressful situation for the dog, and the owner was probably more focused on the kids than on her dog's body language and missed its cues it was uncomfortable. Lesson learned, and I'm very glad no one was hurt.
"The hardest thing is to live richly in the present without letting it be tainted out of fear for the future or regret for the past." - Sylvia Plath
This is absolutely how it should have been done. When I taught at a preschool, I brought my pup, Roxie, in for a show and tell day. She is awesome with kids, and I still didn't let them come up to her all at once--that's insane. The kids sat in their circle where we did story time, and Roxie and I were on the other side of the room. The kids got to come up one at a time and we talked about how to greet dogs and how to pet them nicely. Some of the kids didn't want to pet her, and that was fine, but most of them loved it.
Must have been scary. I'm glad no one was hurt!
Snow!
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DIf he truly intended to bite one of the children, he would have. Humans don't have fast-enough reflexes to get out of the way in time.
Everyone has given great advice-- one child at a time, slow, controlled movements. Also, if possible instruct the child(ten) to avoid direct/starring-like eye contact. Finally, timing is important-- even a calm, kid-friendly dog only has so much patience. It's asking an awful lot of a dog to expect him/her to hold a calm sit with all kinds of stimulation (new people touching) for an extended period. I would say no more than 4 new kids w/o a significant break and some time to just walk around and be a dog.
My dog is very, very mellow. Like mild to a fault (no barks, no jumps and when she's really, really excited... she sets (i.e. stays completely still)). At various times out and about, she's been mobbed by groups of kids (w/o parental supervision). Fortunately, she's calm and will patiently hold a sit while little fingers reach out, but it very much distrubs me that parents would just let their young (I'm talking 6 and under) kids run over to a strange dog! So irresponsible. Sounds like the owner in your situation was more responsible, but still, asked an awful lot of her dog.
Anyway, I'm glad everyone was ok and hope that none of the kids (or parents) will be scared off of dogs! Just like people, they have their moments and stressors. But if you put your dog in a position to succeed your life will be so much richer for the unconditional love!
This would be a great opportunity for the teacher to give the kids a presentation on safety around animals; what to do when you know the animal, what to do when you are meeting the animal with its owner, what to do when you don't know the animal and no owner is present, etc.
As well as good and bad ways to play with pets.
It would probably make the little girl feel better.
My sister got knocked down and clawed by a dog who was being friendly in a too exuberant and uncontrolled manner when she was a child and she was terrified of dogs for a very long time.
Everybody saw what happened to Susie yesterday, and we all want Susie to feel better and happy about dogs, so today we are going to talk about what happened, etc.
Yeah that's right my name's Yauch!
100% this.