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Looking for advice on a dog adoption!
Hi, We are looking to rescue a dog from a local shelter. We have 2 small kids and have been bringing them along for all of the visits. We had a lab who we put to sleep close to 2 years ago now due to cancer, my daughter is 2 and barely remembers him and my son is 5. We found a beagle mix that the kids fell in love with. We have had 2 visits with him in the play yard. He appears to have a great disposition. He is playful, but listens to sit and stay. He is housebroken and is 2 years old. He was found as a stray in our county several months ago. They report no behavioral issues and whatever checklist they go through, they have deemed him good with kids.
We put in our application, but I am nervous. I am nervous that he is not a puppy and we do not know his past, I fear that something could potentially happen with the kids. I worry about the transition period of adjusting him to our home life and how to make it as smooth as possible. Should I be afraid of his age? Any tips or advice on how to make the transition and smooth as possible for all parties? We miss dearly having a dog in our home and are in love with this guy. Just want to make sure the decision is right and we start off on good footing. Thanks!
Re: Looking for advice on a dog adoption!
I would start with setting boundaries for both the dog and the kids. Since your kids are young, I feel that it's important to set boundaries from the get go. I've grown up in a family where the dog sleeps in the bed, but when I was a young child, my parents taught me not to grab/pull/get too close to the dog's face. They taught the dog to give me space. As I got older and/or they learned how the dog would act around me, that "space" grew less and less. It wasn't that I wasn't allowed to touch the dog. I just had to respect their space and they had to respect mine.
As far as his age and not being a puppy, it's actually probably a good thing. Puppies are soooooooo much work. We've decided personally that the next dog we adopt will be at least a year old, because as much as we loved seeing Oz as a little guy, it was a LOT of work.
Just take your time and remember that your new pup will need time to adjust to his new family and surroundings. You did a great thing by adopting!
His past really doesn't matter. Dogs are resilient (see dogs seized from cruelty cases and dog fight rings who've gone on to live in homes with children and other dogs).
What matters is his behavior now, and your actions at home. All interaction between dogs and children should be supervised, whether it's a dog with an unknown history that you've adopted, or a puppy you've raised from birth. Children (and sadly, many adults) don't understand dog body language, and miss "non-verbal" signs of stress, which leads to snapping and biting.
Don't allow kids to poke, pull, or climb on the dog. Teach the kids to leave the dog alone while eating or sleeping. And create a "kid-free safe zone" like a dog bed, crate, or the laundry room where the dog can go to get a break from the kids.
I can speak to personal experience, which I hope will reassure you. I have two beagle mixes that we got from the shelter. We adopted them each when they were two, Darwin is 5 now and Molly is 2. As a breed, hounds tend to be very good with kids. They are naturally very empathetic, intuitive, pack animals who love to be with their people. They're also very sensitive to correction. The one downside is that they can be stubborn and hard to potty train, but if he's already potty trained you should be good. They can also be prone to separation anxiety, so you want to be sure to crate train or confine him when you aren't home to prevent destructive behavior.
My five year old dog is hands down, the best kid dog I have ever seen. We signed him up for obedience classes as soon as we got him and implemented Nothing in life is Free, which really helped him build confidence and learn to respect boundaries. His natural gentleness with people has ALWAYS been there, but we have been able to take him from a really shy anxious dog to one who is incredibly confident thanks to training. As soon as he sees a child he runs up, sits, and waits to be petted. He'll either lick them or rest his head on their shoulders. I prosecute child abuse cases and have even used him to interview some of my victims. We've talked about getting him certified as a therapy dog so he can sit in court with kids while they testify. In my mind, adopting him as an adult made me more confident about his ability to interact with kids. He had a formed personality and experiences, he was AWESOME on his behavioral evaluation. Puppies are continuing to grow and develop, Darwin is already developed and we know through his evaluations by experts at the shelter, our evaluation and our experiences with him, that he is a rockstar with people and children. To me a puppy was more of a crap shoot than an adult. I use Darwin as the example because I have been amazed, since day one, by his happy go lucky personality and natural ability to interact with and soothe people. I also use Molly to interview, but she's still working on her training and can be sort of shy with people.
To make it go as smoothly as possible, I would crate train, supervise dog with the kids anytime he has toys or treats, and make sure they don't bother him when he's eating. Any dog can get kind of snappy over food. But if he's done well with them so far and did well on his behavioral evaluation, in my mind that's probably a better assurance of temperament than future behavior than adopting a puppy who isn't fully developed yet.
When I adopted my first dog, he was about 3-5 years old. It was a wonderful experience and it was so easy. When you adopt an older dog, you know what you are getting. Their personalities are already developed and they are past that puppy stage when they chew on everything etc.
We adopted our second dog when she was about 8 months old. She was more work to train and we saw more surprises in her personalty than with the older dog. But overall, she is great too. Now that she is 2, she is really mellow.
The only advice I can give you is to make sure you are always supervising the dog with your kids. Your kids are very young and even if the dog is well-behaved, your kids might not know how to properly interact with a dog. If you are watching them, you can teach both the dog and the kids how they should play together.
yes totally agree..