Your Child's Dog: How to Help Your Kids Care for Their Pets - Softcover

Andrea McHugh has written and contributed to several books on pets, including How to Have a Happy Dog and Dancing with Dogs.

Introduction

There is no doubt that a dog can bring a huge amount of pleasure and fun to the whole family. Having a pet like a dog will also help your child learn important lessons about being responsible for the health and well-being of another living creature. However; looking after a dog properly requires time, commitment and effort, and it will change the way your family lives. This is something that is not always easy to convey to children. If you are a parent or guardian and you find yourself being put under pressure to buy a dog, then this is the book for you.

Your Child's Dog has been written to give you, the responsible adult, an understanding of exactly what is involved in caring for a dog, and the words to explain things in ways that children will understand. Simply telling a child not to carry a puppy everywhere like a toy will probably go in one ear and out the other. After all, a cute puppy looks just like a toy, and a determined child will just find its wriggling endearing. However, if you can explain the reasons why a dog doesn't like to be carried (because it feels insecure and vulnerable without the use of its legs to run away from danger), you will help even a young child to imagine how the puppy is feeling.

Using simple step-by-step instructions, Your Child's Dog also shows how children can be involved in every aspect of looking after their pet, so that you don't need to worry that you will be left with all the chores as soon as the novelty wears off. As well as demonstrating how to get your child stuck into the routine care, such as feeding, exercising and grooming, there's also lots of information about teaching children to train a puppy from scratch. Helping your child train a dog to sit, walk on a leash and roll over will strengthen the bond between child and puppy and also take much of the responsibility for training out of your hands.

You'll also discover how to involve your child in the less exciting aspects of dog ownership, such as checking for fleas, bathing and visiting the vet. Each stage of a dog's life has its own challenges, and your child will need help to learn how to deal with these and to behave in a way that will ensure that the puppy remains happy and well as it becomes an adult.

As a first step, you need to decide as a family whether you are able to offer a home to a dog or whether it would be better to defer the decision for a while. When you are certain that you are ready and able to become a dog-owning family, the next stage is to do your research and decide on the best type of dog for you. And once you've chosen your puppy, you need to prepare your home and your children for the new arrival. This includes discussing how responsibility will be allocated among different members of the family and making sure the house and yard are puppy-friendly zones.

Once you have brought the dog home, you are faced with a whole new set of questions and potential problems. How can your child and dog play safely together? How do you deal with bad behavior from puppy or child? And how do you answer all those awkward or embarrassing questions? Look out for the "Question time" boxes, which pose all the questions that children commonly ask. In each case, you'll find an explanation of the underlying issues as well as a sample answer couched in terms that your child should find easy to understand.

Learning as much as possible about canine behavior, and about the way that dogs communicate with each other and with their owners, means that you and your family will get maximum enjoyment from your dog. And, after all, having fun together is what owning a dog is all about.