Today I have the great fortune of having a guest blog writer — my dear friend and expert dog trainer Samantha Fogg! Thank you so much Samantha for this column and your expertise! Here is what Samantha writes in response to a very common problem:.
Puppies and children CAN co-exist in the same household, but it will take a bit of work and understanding, and yes supervision. Puppies bite everything. Human babies do this too. Remember when your child stuck everything into his or her mouth? It may seem like a cruel joke that puppies are at their most oral at the same time that their teeth are the sharpest, and yes puppy teeth hurt.
Dogs need to have exquisite control over their mouths. They need to be able to exert the precise amount of control to gently lift and carry fragile items, and also to be able to rip and tear food. When puppies play with each other they wrestle, and bite, and grab onto each other. If one puppy bites another puppy too hard, the hurt pup will give a high pitched yelp and go a bit limp. The biting pup should immediately back off.
If the biting pup persists with biting too hard, the one being bitten will refuse to play with the biter. Thus puppies learn exactly how hard they can bite each other without hurting, and they gain control of their mouths.
Hurt dogs defend themselves by biting, and if something terrible happens, say your toddler hurts your dog badly, you want the dog to know that humans are fragile, and to be able to restrain himself and only put his mouth on your child, and not scar your child. Bite inhibition is critical. To teach this, you depending on the age of your children, you likely do not want them to do this want to solicit play with your hands.
