Dogs. Bite.

I was about 10 years old and my dad was a police officer with a working K9 partner. He and another officer from his department had just competed in the state Police K9 Olympics. The other officer had just won third place overall and first place in Officer Protection. In other words, his ramped-up, trained attack dog had just been playing the “bite the bad guy” game. The officer was standing with his dog and his trophies and people were trying to take photos. Comfortable with this dog – I knew him, after all, and ever helpful, I knelt in front of them and went, “SSSSSSssss!” (This is the sound the agitator makes during training to get the dogs excited.) The lovely silver and white shepherd mix launched – right at my face - and connected on my forehead and chin with a wide bite, just as he’d been trained.

I fell on my fanny in shock and started crying. Mom didn’t have much sympathy. In fact, I am pretty sure she said something like, “Well, that was a stupid thing to do!” The dog was not punished, but this child learned a valuable lesson. Dogs. Bite.

Children are impulsive, lack common sense and usually cannot begin to read dog body language. Even if a dog is showing warning signals as obvious as a construction worker waving a “Stop” sign, the child will not notice. I blame Disney-type shows for this, as well as parents who think that the family dog is part of the family – a sibling – a human – and not a dog. Surely Bowser would never BITE Bobby – Bowser loves Bobby. “You should see them; Bobby lays all over Bowser – every day! – and Bowser never growls or anything.” Well, all fine and dandy ‘til one day Bowser’s tired and cranky. Maybe his ear is infected or his belly aches. Maybe he’s just tired of Bobby laying on him. Bowser stiffens. Bobby approaches. Bowser growls. Bobby thinks Bowser’s snoring. Bowser snaps. Bobby bleeds. Bowser is… put to death?

One foot per year of child’s age. That’s how much freedom you should give your child with the family dog. Your 5 year old child should be within a long-arm's reach of your intervention. Additionally, you need to know when to intervene.

If you live with children and a dog in your home, you have a huge responsibility to educate yourself on canine body language. (I highly recommend Brenda Aloff’s great book: Canine Body Language; A Photographic Guide. ) Understand that your dog is NOT human. He’s a dog. He will communicate like a dog (not like a wolf, by the way, but that’s an argument for another article.) He will likely give warning signals and it’s up to you to know how to read them and intervene if the child within your reach is annoying him. He may tolerate all sorts of abuse from your children – but should he? Do you reward him lavishly for doing so?

When a child in my home trips and falls on the family dog, we run to the refrigerator and the dog gets a glorious snack of whatever I can find quickly. A block of cheese – sure! – since we don’t have to go to the hospital!

Think about it. You live with a predator. With sharp teeth. Even dogs bred for companionship still have personal boundaries. What are you doing today to help your dog learn to accept mistakes from your child? What are you doing today to protect your child from being “stupid” toward your dog? Are you close enough to intervene before Bowser takes it upon himself to train your child? Are you aware how an older dog punishes a pup? It’s an escalation of force – one you’d do well to understand and prevent by keeping the one-foot-per-year-old rule.

My mom was less than 10 feet away when the police dog flew at my face. She grabbed me and the leashed dog was quickly restrained by his professional handler. If the bite had been worse, it would have been all my fault, but the poor dog likely would not have been forgiven. I am glad for both our sakes that it ended as well as it did. I hope to prevent other children from learning the hard way that dogs bite.