아이 친화적인 개와 개 친화적인 아이를 만드는 방법 #58

I, you know, don't have kids of my own. So, you're going to say, well, what authority do you have to give me advice on kids and dogs? You may know that I was raised in a family with eight brothers and sisters. From those eight brothers and sisters, I have somewhere upwards of 40 nieces, nephews, and great nieces and nephews. Are they called grand nieces and nephews? I'm not sure. But I'm surrounded by kids a lot. And I absolutely adore kids. And obviously you guys know what I feel about dogs. And so, I believe having a dog in a house with kids is just an, or can be an awesome combination because it allows kids to learn some hugely important life lessons. Hugely important life lessons. Like, I mean, as we are all being shaped by dogs. And so, it's critical though, as the adults in the household, that we navigate those lessons in a way that help create the best relationship possible for the dog and the children in your house, as well as the best relationship possible for not only you and the dog, but more importantly, you and your children. I, true story. I was watching a professional dog trainer once with their, I think he was about a 12-year-old boy. And the 12-year-old was playing with her dog and she turned and scolded her son and say, don't you bond with that dog? And it made me a little sad. And I looked at her and I said, what's going on? She said, well, you know, I find my dogs bond with my kids so much easier than me. But that by saying, by scolding your kid, you're putting a wedge between them and that's just not necessary. So, let's make sure that we create harmony with everyone so that the best situation possible happens. But it starts with being aware of what you're expecting of the dog. So, my mentor, Bob Bailey, I'm sure I've mentioned this great quote by Bob Bailey. He says, the problem in animal training is we expect far too much of the animal and far too little of us. So, a lot of times parents just expect dogs to behave, expect to, for a dog to be okay being grabbed by the ear, even if there's an infection. That they're going to be okay being grabbed by the tail or a kid jumping on their back or flopping down on them and giving them a big hug or coming right up to their face and looking them, you know, googly-eyed or squeezing the sides of their face. A lot of times parents just expect that if you're going to be a dog in this household, then you have got to learn to be okay with this. And that's unfair because we all should have the right to say, I'm uncomfortable with what's going on, dogs included.

Because what lessons are you teaching your kids if that isn't the case? We're teaching the kids that we can bully anything or anybody we want to. They just need to play our game. That's okay. You know, there's a lot of things that kids pick up on and we don't even realize, which is why I had a good friend of mine. They got a puppy and against my better recommendation, they sent this puppy away to be trained somewhere else. And the training, they use food, but they also use corrections. So, when they got this 12-week-old puppy back, what they had to do is they had to go in and learn how to correct the dog. Because they had never had a dog before. So, they learned how to, when they said sit, if the puppy didn't sit, they popped it on the collar. And if it didn't down when they said, they popped it down. And they had at the time a five-year-old and a seven-year-old. And I said, you are establishing that if something's weaker, it's okay to be tough and physical with them to get them to do what we want. And I don't think, and I know these people, they're the kindest people I've ever met in my life. And I know that's not the kind of lessons that they wanted to establish for their kids. And side note to this, 10 days after they got this dog back, the stress and anxiety of the situation was complicated because somebody that the dog didn't know was left in the house alone with it, left the door open and the dog ran away and was gone for hours. Happy ending the dog was found and happier ending, I took the dog for a month and did some training with it. Okay. So, having the right outcomes with kids and dogs starts with having the right expectations. And this is a great idea that somebody on our team, Laura M, shout out to Laura. When I asked her the question about, you know, she's got these great kids and the great relationship with the dog. And I asked her for some of her thoughts on what she did. And she said, it really starts with family agreements. So, this is the first thing I would encourage you to think about. And I'm just going to add to some of this. So, what are the family agreements? Now, if you're listening to this podcast, chances are that you want to train your dog in a system based in kindness and understanding that the dog is doing the best they can with the education that you've given them in the environment that you're asking them to do whatever you've asked them to do. And that's a lesson we need to help the children to understand that a dog is doing the best they can. So, I've written down five agreements here. So, the first one would be, you have to agree on

what the kids are allowed to call the dog. Because if you have, like if you have kids that are 10 years or older, they should understand or should be able to comprehend when you say, you ask a dog to do something once and you don't repeat the cue. Go back to episode number 19, where I talk about how cues get poisoned. So, kids, and I hate to say in age because kids mature at different rates. So, you might have a 12-year-old that you have to have different rules with than a five-year-old. But if you tell a child, well, this dog's name's Charlie, then chances are every other word out of that kid's mouth is going to be Charlie. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. And so, it might need to have an agreement that you're going to call the dog puppy, pup pup, unless you have the passkey, which is a treat. And then you can say his name once, but you have to give him a treat right after. So, an agreement like that, agreement on how words are going to be used. And you might want to give the dog a nickname that the kids can use while you use the proper name until the kids understand. So, agreement number two would be about around rewards and food and how the dog isn't going to get food from the table and the dog isn't going to get human food. And the dog's going to get, you know, we're going to set aside the rewards for the dog at the beginning of the day. And these are how we're going to give them out. You know, it's important to get buy-in from the kids to help, you know, maybe even sit down, even little Esme who's six. I would sit down with a six-year-old and say, here's what I want to do. These are my thoughts. And, you know, let them have some say in it. At the end of the day, you can say, well, these are great ideas and we'll think about them for next time. But today this is what we're going to do. Number one, your agreement is the words. Number two are the food and the rewards. Number three would be how we show affection to a dog and explain that long body strokes are really good ways to show affection. Hugging and putting your face next to your dog's face, poking and pulling tails and pulling, like these are smacking. These aren't great ways of showing affection unless you're doing it in a game of tug and the dog's tugging and then you're smacking them. That's fun. Okay. So, number three is how we show affection. Number four is going to be what's your role when I train? Now, if you have a four-year-old, there's different roles that you can assign. But the most important thing that I'm going to say here is the family agreement is that the

adults train the dogs. Once a skill has been taught, then we bring the kids in to help with the training. But at first it's got to be that the adults train the dogs. All right. That's so important because it's going to exponentially improve the rate that the dogs are going to learn. You know, I'm just going to take a side trip here because I remember, you know, see this on television all the time where people get a family pet and they tell the 10-year-old, okay, it's your responsibility to do to train it and to bathe it and to walk it and to feed it. Come on, let's not overwhelm the kids. Let's be fair. Number five would be the transitions. So, when we're going to dinner, we're going to have our dog go in the hot zone. When we're going outside, we're going to have the dog go in the hot zone because that's a consistent place where the dog can know what's expected of them. And the hot zone, I've talked about this before. It's an extension of crate games and it's the dog has a spot, a mat, a bed where they understand I need to be here to get rewards and for your best benefit to stay out of trouble. So, there we have some family agreements and included in that, I would talk about be kind. Be kind in your actions and be kind in your word. And that's just a great life lesson for kids to learn, right? What does that mean to be kind? And so, that would be the first thing we do. Now we're going to talk about what are the critical lessons I think you absolutely have to have if you have kids in your house. Number one would be it's your choice. And if you go to the show notes, you will see a link to it's your choice. That is the first game that every household's got to have because dogs need to know if there's toddlers going around the house, they can't just eat the cookies out of their hands. That if the kid throws food off of their high chair, that's not free game. Now you could decide at the end of the meal to tell the dog, okay, you can clean up the floor, but you need to do that on cue. Because if you don't do it on cue, you're telling them if you find food, you can have it. Well, they're going to find food in your kid's hand next week and you're not going to like that. So, make sure they stay in the hot zone and you teach it's your choice and they are told when they can do cleanup on aisle high chair. All right. So, I would say it's your choice. Definitely. Crate games, definitely, because that helps lead you into the hot zone. The bring me behavior. The bring me behavior is critical because

kids' dogs pick up kids' toys. And if you start chasing them, they're going to run off. They pick up dirty socks and underwear. If you start chasing them, it's going to be, it's just going to be chaotic. Kids running, kids screaming, he's got my favorite toy. And the dog's having fun. So, bring me. Anything my puppy, she's four months old. She picks something up. I said, bring me. Boom. It's in my hand. So, it's your choice. Bring me. Those two games you can get in Homeschool the Dog. There's a lot of games actually. You can get Homeschool the Dog that would be a massive benefit. For these games, it's your choice and bring me. Crate games isn't there, but hot zone is. So, you can get, it's your choice, hot zone and bring me. They're all in Homeschool the Dog. If you're not in Homeschool the Dog and you'd want to, it is like $300 if you go to our website. However, if you send a note to my team and say, subject line, Homeschool the Dog, I was listening. My team, I promise you, will give you a ridiculously good offer. And I'm going to tell them this after I'm done this podcast. A ridiculously good opportunity to join Homeschool the Dog. I just thought of that because I'm looking at these games, you can get them all in Homeschool the Dog. So, those are the things that are critical. And so, you know, a lot of times people like to play retrieve with the dog. Well, a better game for if you've got kids is just drop it. So, tell your children that they can drop a toy and then tell the dog, bring me. That's of course, after you've taught them, bring me. So, it's not the dog running because sometimes the kids throw as bad and all of a sudden the dog's on your table breaking grandma's china. You don't want that. So, just dropping the toy and the dog can pick it up and put it in their hand. Rather than playing, like if it's a young child, playing tug might not be good because the leverage of the dog swinging your kid hitting grandma's china is not a good plan. So, rather than playing tug, they can play a game like hiding a toy and letting the dog find it and then the dog brings it back. So, those are more productive ways that they can interact. Okay. Training. This is the biggie. I want the kids to be involved, but I want you to do the training at least initially, depending on the age of the kids, of course. If the kids are old enough, you can do a little bit and then they can do a little bit. But one of the life lessons that are great that we can teach these kids, our kids, our kids, my kids have four legs, but I still teach them, is how to set, how to be a

goal setter. And so, when you're training, you're going to start with a plan and then you're going to tell your kids, okay, here's my plan and here's what I'd like you to do. I'd like you to count how many cookies I give the dog. And I'd like to count how many times the dog failed or tried and didn't get a cookie. So, now we've got the kids involved. Now, if your kids are too young for that, they might be in a playpen watching and you're going to go in and celebrate with them during balance breaks. If you don't know what balance breaks are, check out episode 57. So, you've got your plan. You're going to manipulate the environment. Dig into episode number six so that you get success with the behavior training, you set up a video. So, use your phone so that you can video your session. And then you're going to train your dog. And then you're going to review the video and see all the amazing things and just take notes for the next time. And so, you involve your kids because you're going to tell them, well, we're going to video because that's how you improve any mechanical skills. So, if you're playing baseball, you need to video your swing. You need to video how you throw. So, if you've got your kids around, hey, I'll video you training and then you video me training. So, it's a great way to involve the kids in what you're doing. Most important thing is you've got to know what's age appropriate or maturity level appropriate for the kids because we want the kids to learn to have respect for dogs. All right. And if you are listening to this like little as we'll be, remember people are for hugging, dogs are for patting, praising, and rewarding. All right. And it's super important, especially as our dogs get older, because a geriatric dog, they're going to have a huge startle reflex. They're going to have more pain than the average dog. So, we need kids to leave the dogs alone. When dogs are eating guys, you got to keep away from them. You've got to leave them alone. So, respect for dogs is just so important. And finally, you can include the kids in day-to-day responsibilities like feeding the dog. Like if they're old enough, they can scoop the kibble in a bowl. If you feed a kibble, if you feed raw, you might prepare that and then let the children just dole them out to the dogs or dog that you have. Walking the dog, they can be part of that. I encourage you to help them, to have them be part of the poop cleanup. You shouldn't be responsible for that as part of owning a dog, even if they're just counting them as you scoop

them up into your scooper. All right. So, grooming and bathing and nail trimming, things like that. Brushing your dog's teeth daily. It's great to involve your dogs in all of that, in all of that. Okay. The bottom line is guys that we as adults need to be the best advocate for our dogs. Those relationships can grow intentionally, but it requires you having a plan. It requires you sitting down these family agreements. And I would suggest you review these agreements daily at the dinner table. So, you know, what one went well for you today? And at the end of the week, celebrate as a family. Let's celebrate the agreements that we did because, you know, you might say, what kind of a family pet do we want and are we on the right track? All right. So, talk about that and celebrate as a family. Because if a dog fails, then we failed. Right? And that's another valuable lesson that we can teach a dog. That the dogs are never bad because they made a mistake. They just didn't understand what we expected. And so, what can we do differently to help our dogs have a better understanding? It's the best lesson you can teach your children. Because then when they have a coworker that disappoints them, they're not going to think that coworker's a jerk. They're going to say, how could I have communicated my expectations better to you? Because I seem to have been disappointed with this outcome. Right? Instead of getting angry at someone, they are saying, wow, okay, well, where was our misunderstanding? And let's see how we can make it better for all of us. If you haven't subscribed, please subscribe. And I got a question, one final question for you. Do you consider yourself a helpful person? If you do, I'd love for you to help me out by sharing this podcast with anyone you know who has kids and dogs in the house. Let's make life better for everybody. And let's help grow relationships between kids and dogs intentionally and not by accident. I'll see you next time on Shaped by Dog.