- Hey YouTube it's Ken and Kayl
from McCann Professional Dog Trainers and
we're here for another episode of our
Dog Walk and Training Talk series.
And this week we're gonna address something that's
a little bit different than things we've done before.
So every night after training we'll often go
hang out in the agility arena,
we'll talk about dog training,
you know, we'll train our own dogs,
maybe run some of the agility courses,
but something interesting happened a couple weeks ago
and I wanted to share that with you guys.
So I'm just gonna run a clip right now and
we'll be right back.
- Hey Charlie wanna see her go again?
- Yeah. - Simon, oh she's silly.
(giggling)
- Look at that!
- Go again!
- Again? Look at her she's like a big fish.
(giggling)
- Oh she's silly.
- Can I touch her?
- Yes.
- Hi.
- Aw there's that tail.
- Her whacked me.
(laughter)
- So if you noticed in the video
Instructor Kris was doing some tricks with Siri and
little three-year-old Charlie who
is the daughter of one of our agility instructors Jamie,
thought it was pretty cute.
When Kris brought Siri over,
Charlie very clearly asked Kris if she could pet Siri.
And we think that's a really really good thing
for kids to remember.
You know, a lot of kids get really comfortable
because they may have a dog at home,
and they may just assume their dog at home would be
just as friendly or just as comfortable with
them approaching the dog.
So we have four things that we think all kids
should know about meeting and greeting dogs.
The first one: always ask permission.
Whether it's asking permission of the owner,
maybe if the kids are under 10 they might
ask permission from their parents,
and in that case it's best if the parent were to
go up and maybe say hello to the dog first
and just make sure things are okay.
But it is really important that the kids ask permission.
So the second thing we wanted to talk about is
how kids should greet a dog.
It's really important that kids understand that
you can't just walk up to a dog and put your
hand over their head and start petting them on the head.
The safest thing for a kid to do is approach a dog,
maybe offer them the back of their hand,
below the plane of the dog's nose,
and again never standing over top of the dog.
But maybe approach from the side and
petting the dog on its side just to sort of
have the safest way.
Remember a really wiggly dog can quickly become
a biting dog because they get really stimulated.
Some dogs get really excited by kids and
the giggling and all the high-pitched sounds.
Dogs can sort of get too excited about greeting kids
and it can turn into an event
where they may get nipped.
The third thing that would probably be a good thing
to educate your child would be what to do
if a dog randomly comes up to them,
maybe, you know, somebody at the park
has their dog off leash,
the dog runs over to your child.
Whether the dog is friendly or not,
sort of the same reaction is the safest thing.
The best thing for a kid to do if a dog approaches them
is to stand quietly and calmly,
keep their hands at their side or even just
put their hands crossed.
And the best thing to do is to actually turn around,
and put their back to the dog.
When I was a little kid,
my dad taught me that if I was riding a bike it was
a good idea for me to get off my bike,
and put the bike between myself and the dog,
just as a bit of protection.
You know most often than not,
the dog is probably running over because they
think the kid's cute and making
lots of noise and is exciting,
but you just never know and its best to
have really good control of the situation
before letting kids interact with dogs,
especially if you don't know them.
- And the fourth and final point that you
should teach your kids about greeting dogs
is to never approach a dog who is tied up.
You know there's lots of scenarios where maybe
a dog is tied up in the backyard,
or outside of a store sometimes you see people
tie their dog up to a bike rack or something like that.
It's really important that kids don't approach those dogs.
The dog can really feel vulnerable at those times,
and you know a kid approaching may be
just a little bit too concerning for a dog.
It's never a safe scenario for a child to
approach a dog that's tied up.
- I think the dogs sort of get put
in a bit of a situation where they go
into either fight or flight.
As well dogs will often do that if
they feel cornered and it's just not fair to
put dogs in that situation so we
try to avoid it if we can.
- Yeah absolutely.
Well thanks for watching guys,
if this is your first time with us
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from Kayl McCann and myself and
Funky Monkey and Rad the border collie,
thanks for watching, happy training.
- Bye. - Bye for now.