What a tough call to handle today! I'm counseling a family that is fighting an accusation of a dangerous animal made against their dog. The dog reportedly bit the neighbor's child while playing with a group of children on a trampoline. It appears that the injuries to the child are not severe, but the child's mother is frightened that the dog will injure her child again.
I completely understand, being a mother myself; however, we need to take a number of factors into consideration in looking at cases like these. Here, one of the most important pieces of information we'll be looking at is the level of injuries involved. The injuries include scratches from the dog's paws and what may be injuries from a single bite. I don't have the full information yet to be able to assess the bite in full, but a careful assessment must be done!
We are also looking at two other factors here. First, the incident took place when the dog was playing on a trampoline with children. The dog appears to have become overly arroused in its play with the child, but it also could have easily become frightened at the way the trampoline moves and at the way the children tumble around on the trampoline. Dogs don't undertand trampolines! This is a scenario that is easily avoided in the future by not having the dog play on the trampoline with children.
Second, other children have now reported that this child taunted the dog on several occassions. We can work to ensure that this doesn't take place any longer (taunting should NEVER be allowed!) and do some training to teach the dog how to act around children.
Unfortunately, this family will need to go to court to keep their dog from being put to sleep as a result of this incident. Make sure you take the following steps with your children and dog to be sure that you never find yourself in this awful situation:
- Never leave children and dogs alone! This is especially important if the children are not your own children that the dogs know well, but even your own children should be supervised with your dog. This will allow you to see if any taunting is taking place or to see if your dog looks uncomfortable with anything happening. Some of the things that children do just don't seem normal to a dog. Children make sudden and sometimes awkward movements, they shout and yell, they run, hug, and grab. Dogs may find this frightening or become overly stimulated by this.
- If you see signs of stress in your dog, any taunting or teasing by the kids, or if you cannot stay to supervise, put your dog away.
- Talk to kids about taunting and teasing and never allow it with your animals or any other animals. Also teach kids not to wrap their arms around dogs, kiss dogs in the face, or hug dogs. These are all threatening behaviors for a dog so unless you are absolutely positive your dog is comfortable with it and you are directly involved in the interaction, it's a very bad idea!
- Teach your dog a solid recall to be able to call it over to you if you see situations that may cause trouble. It is also very helpful to teach your dog to greet children (and adults) by sitting or laying down and heavily reinforcing this behavior with food, praise, toys, or petting!
- Beware of situations that seem normal to you but may be confusing or frightening to your dog. A dog on a trampoline cannot understand what is happening when the surface bounces or moves out from under it or when other people on the trampoline bounce into the dog. It can frighten and overwhelm a dog, causing them to act in a manner they wouldn't otherwise.
Take precautions and always supervise so that you are in a better position to prevent these types of issues and so that you can better defend yourself and your dog if anything does occur! And, if you are worried about your dog's behavior, seek the help of a trained professional.
Cara Shannon, JD, CDBD, CPDT-KA
