Teaching 1-year old to be gentle to dog

[JamesMama]

Sorry if this has been posted already, I couldn't find anything when I searched.

My DS (1 year old) has recently started pulling the dogs hair to the point where it hurts the dog. I jump up and pull his hand away and say "James! Be gentle to Shadow!" and use his hand to pet her to show him how to be gentle. But 2 seconds later he pulls her hair again. I've been moving the dog, but it's a small house so unless I lock her in a room alone (not what I really want to do) I can't keep them seperate.

Is there anyway I can get him to be nice to her? Will it just take time?

I'm not really worried Shadow will bite James. She is a very good dog, but I'm sure even good dogs get pushed to their limit (if Shadow ever bit James, no matter what the provacation DH would take her to the humane society or give her up some other way). He's really hurting her so I'm trying to be quick to intervine, but I don't know what else to do...I don't want her being hurt all the time.

Thanks!

LOL, I should add I don't move the dog, I tell her to move, she's a pretty big dog.

[captain crunchy]

Does your dog attempt to run away or disengage when your child pulls its hair? I know our cat hightails it outta there the minute our daughter is not gentle with her. I do believe that unless your dog is a masochist, she would probably move if it hurt her, or growl or even *nip* (not bite, but a warning type thing) if your child was truly causing her pain -- it is a survival mechanism.

However, that doesn't mean it is okay for your one year old to be pulling the dog's hair.

With our cat, I don't say "no" or "stop" or even "that hurts" because our daughter has no concept of hurt -- no one has ever hurt her so to say "that hurts" means nothing yet to her. What I do is I will gently remove her hand and say something like " Kitty likes to be touched gently" Then I will demonstrate a gentle touch by either me stroking my daughter's face gently and saying "this is a gentle touch" or if my daughter is willing, I will take her hand and demonstrate a gentle touch on either the cat (if she has stuck around ) or on myself and say "mama likes to be touched gently" and by telling her "this is a gentle touch" when I stroke her hand on my face.

It took a bit, but she really does get it now and almost always touches the cat gently. I think though, that the fact that the cat completely disengages if our daughter gets a bit *rowdy* is incentive too -- our daughter likes to pet the cat and has realized that if she isn't gentle, the cat won't play with her.

[JamesMama]

Shadow is pretty leery of moving away from people, we got her as a rescue, she was abused by her first owners so that puts of lot of fear in her. Just now he had her backed into a corner and she wouldn't push past him. I picked him up and told her to move...guess it will just take time. Poor Shadow.

[captain crunchy]

Aw, well I didn't know the situation. I am sorry your dog was abused, that is so sad

I do think then, that redirection and removal of your child from the situation (gently and without punishment) would work too, as well as the suggestions I mentioned above.

Good luck to you!

[JamesMama]

Thanks.

She's such a good dog, even though she had a rough start she has never ever bitten anyone.

She's also really protective of James and I. If DH is playing with James and pretends like he's chasing him Shadow will get between them and nip at DH. She's a great dog.

[green betty]

What has worked for us has been to show 14 month old ds to pat and also to stroke flat handed. We say "pat pat pat" and gently pat the dogs. He imitates us, and is developing the habit of patting. He's excited to try his new skill and doesn't think about pulling.

Of course, sometimes it's more like, "PAT! PAT! PAT!" and we have to intervene to help take it down a few notches.

[PuppyFluffer]

It is helpful to learn (or remember) that children do not understand empathy until sometime between the ages of 3 and 5 years old. What you're wanting your child to do is not developmentally appropriate for your little one. Just because they can't really integrate the gentle touch lesson does not stop us from teaching "gentle" But it was really really helpful for me to learn that what I was expecting my child to do, she was not capable of yet.

I think seperation of your dog and child is of utmost importance. Especially a dog that has reason to distrust due to being abused formerly. Dogs never ever forget things like that. Can you use baby gates to seperate them when you can't be right there?

I am a professional pet groomer and I have known several dogs whose temperaments were so sweet and seemingly solid....I never thought they would bite a kid.....and they bit a kid in a situation under pressure. I don't want to scare you, but a dog in a corner with no place to go except pushing past a kid is just the sort of situation that a kid gets bitten in. Most kids get bitten in the face because they are persuing the dog - reaching for them- and not heeding the subtle body language communication that the dog is sending saying "Back off".

I'd encourage you to go post in the "Pets" forum and describe your dog, her past history, the age of your child etc....and you will get some helpful information.

[DevaMajka]

We were there, not too long ago in our house. We have 2 big dogs. One of them, will move away if she's annoyed. The other one won't, for whatever reason lol.
I don't know when TRUE empathy develops, but I don't think its unreasonable at all to expect that a 12-18 mos old child will learn that its not ok to hit the dog.
What we did, though the exact wording has changed-. We told him not to hit her, and that it hurt her. (we stopped him from hitting her again, by holding the stick he was swinging, or holding onto his arm, gently of course). We told him to pet her gently, and modeled it. Then, we'd tell and show him other things that he could hit- the couch, the floor, a toy, the coffee table, whatever. (note that ds has never been an "angry hitter"). He usually hit the dogs when he was playing with any stick-type thing. He hit more in an experimental way.
The thinking was to "redirect" while "honoring the original impulse" (from Becoming the parent you want to be). WHY was he hitting her? If he was experimenting with what happens when you hit objects, then we focused on redirecting him to experiment with hitting something else. If he was hitting as a way of interacting with her, we focused on the "petting gently" part. kwim?
As he got older, I started telling him that the dog doesn't like to be hit, and that she likes to be pet gently, but same basic idea.
Though, I don't recall him hitting either of them in quite a while. Sometimes he pats a little harder than I'd like, but it's pretty obvious what he's doing, kwim? But all in all, it was a phase that passed rather quickly, with not many incidents, really.

Oh, something else, that I realized was happening here. Ds would see ME pat the dog, and perhaps that had something to do with him hitting them. He couldn't control how HARD he patted them. When I realized that, I stopped doing it, of course.

Also, my assumption through all of it was that he wanted to do the "right thing", which was not hurt the dog. So he needed our *help* in doing so. We helped by giving information, and giving him acceptable alternatives. (that's my basic process for most things )

hth

[ShadowMom]

Our DS started pulling the dogs hair at around 1 year and it declined into a several month period where he simply could not be left alone with the dogs for even a moment (when I say alone, I mean I couldn't do anything other than stand there and watch them when they were together).

We seem to have gotten out of that phase, but there was a long stretch where he just LOVED the dogs so much he wanted to interact with them constantly, and didn't understand how to do that appropriately. And, I do think my dogs would eventually bite him if provoked enough, so I had a lot of motivation to help him with it.

My advice is to be VERY consistent, even when it seems like it's not doing any good.

Make sure your dog has someplace she can go that the 1year old can't, if AT ALL possible.

Give them some separate time each day... maybe the dog can eat in the bedroom with the door closed or something for a little while. Gives everyone time to decompress and you time to get stuff done without worrying.

Come up with a catch phrase, rhyme, or a little song that describes what you want them to do. One of my sayings was "If they're crazy, stay away!" Meaning, if the dogs are roughhousing together, he needs to steer clear of them. I just repeated this every time the situation came up, and eventually he got it (this was at around 19 months though).

I think there is a very limited amount you can expect at this age. Your consistency will greatly pay off though, because your child will be great with animals. Just make sure you don't leave them alone together. You will probably experience peaks and valleys where it things go great for a while, and then your DS will backslide for a little while, if my experience is any indication.

Hope this helps! There was a little phase where I STRONGLY wished I did not have kids and dogs at the same time, but thankfully, that seems to have passed, at least for now.

[PuppyFluffer]

Originally Posted by KristiMetz

And, I do think my dogs would eventually bite him if provoked enough, so I had a lot of motivation to help him with it.

I think this is a statement of truth for any dog. They all have their limits and any dog can be provoked to bite, sometimes their threshold is far lower than we think.

I too had a period where I STRONGLY wished I didn't have dogs and a small child simultaneously! The combination sure made my life difficult for a while.

When our dd was about 16 months old, she would be petting the cat, then pat HARD and the cat would run off. We had been teaching how to touch gently since dd could crawl. I would talk to her about it and ask her if she thought it was ok to hit the cat. She'd say "No, we don't hit kitties." Then I would ask her why and she'd say "Hitting hurts kitties." She could repeat the words but had not integrated their meaning. (She was VERY verbal VERY early...but even though she had the words, she didn't have the meaning!)

I strongly urge seperation or direct supervision.

[cuttiebearmom]

One of the things that has worked with my girls and the cats is to teach them early that petting animals is done with the back of their hand at first. I know sounds sort of crazy but it eliminates the temptation to PULL the animals hair to some degree. My DD1 actually learned the concept of 'gentle' with our cat this way and she is 2 years old and still will use the back of her hand occasionally if I tell her to be gentle to something, pretty cute. DD2 is just starting to pet the cat this way and it's going pretty well.