How to Teach Children to Prevent Dog Bites

Children are the victims of dog bites and dog attacks much more often than adults. From a dog’s point of view, a child’s smaller size, less predictable behavior, and quick movements all seem very strange. Children are also more likely to tease a dog or to treat it like an inanimate object.

There are many ways for children to prevent dog bites.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Remember that all dogs bite.
   
   There is no such thing as a dog who will not, under some circumstance, bite a person. Many dogs are strongly inhibited, through hundreds of years of selective breeding as well as proper training and socialization, against biting a person, but no dog is ever one hundred percent guaranteed to not bite.

2. Keep natural dog behavior in mind at all times.
   
   Any time you are interacting with a dog, whether it’s your beloved family pet or the neighbor’s new puppy, take the opportunity to model and teach to your child appropriate ways of handling a dog.
   
   This means you can’t treat the dog like a “fur person” or a toy. He’s a dog – he needs clear expectations, proper training and socialization, and regular physical and mental exercise. Treats, petting, and cooing are all optional (and fun for us humans) but need to come last, not first.

3. Don’t tease a dog.
   
   Some adults don’t even recognize when they are teasing an animal, so this can be a difficult concept to teach to children.
   
   Basically, teasing involves doing something repetitively that the object of the teasing does not enjoy.
   
   Teasing is a sure ticket to a dog bite for most adults and all children.