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Adding a new four-legged cutie is both exciting and a new experience for your children. Now that you have a puppy in the home, several things need to change. You must teach your kids how to treat the puppy. The attitude of the dog depends on how it is raised when it is young. So, here are some ways to teach your kids how to take care of a puppy.
When the puppy is being trained, it is advisable to take children with you. Taking them along allows them to see the dog trainer in action and to ask all their questions. Since they have witnessed the training process, they can help the dog learn and adjust to commands by practising at home. They would also be able to tell what the dog needs. For instance, if the dog has been trained to perform a gesture to indicate they need the loo, then your child would be able to identify this. You and the children can also teach the dog a couple of tricks to bond with it. Including your children also teaches the puppy to listen and obey them.
Let your children understand that the puppy is an addition to the family; therefore, they will play a role in taking care of it. Divide the responsibilities that come with owning a pet. You can let your kids take on tasks such as cleaning up after the dog, taking it on bathroom breaks, and cleaning the eating and drinking bowls. Tasks such as bathing the dog would be quite tough for your younger children. Therefore, in dividing the tasks, do so reasonably so that their assignments would not be too difficult for them to accomplish. You could always create a duty roster of chores so that every child knows their tasks and what it entails.
When it comes to sharing responsibility, it’s also going to help teach responsibility, such as the responsibility to love and properly take care of this animal. It’s so important for parents to teach their kids that doing the bare minimum is far from enough for their pets (let alone any animal). It’s important to give them nothing but the best, such as researching products or looking into Freshet reviews, what can keep the pet (like a puppy) in healthy condition, and so on. Sharing responsibility is a good start to teaching them that an animal needs more than the bare minimum.
Therefore, in dividing the tasks, do so reasonably so that their assignments would not be too difficult for them to accomplish. You could always create a duty roster of chores so that every child knows their tasks and what it entails.
Even before the dog comes home, one of the first things to do is to get a puppy crate for them to sleep in and get some space. You can look here for puppy crates online – this is where we got ours from and it’s really great quality. The crate serves many purposes, but one of the essential purposes is that it is the dog’s safe place. Teach your kids to respect the puppy’s space just as they would for people. Just like people, dogs also need some peace and a break to be alone during the day. Teach your child to let the dog eat in peace. Do not let them try to pat the dog, or play with the bowl while it eats. Some puppies would show an aggressive side. This reaction might spook your child, turning what should have been a fun experience into a traumatic one.
Your children are too excited about their new furry family member, and there is no way they would not want to be all over it! However, you should teach them to do so gently. Upon the arrival of the puppy, teach them how to gently stroke the dog. Let them understand that they should not tap the dog’s face or pull its tail as this might confuse and irritate the dog. You can also schedule petting times, especially for younger children – this should always be done under your supervision.
There are certain habits you would not want to encourage your children to adopt. For instance, you would not want them to encourage the puppy to bite, even in a playful way – this only teaches the dog that it can overpower them and lead it to be aggressive and they will keep on biting and thinking it’s okay.
You also would not want them to carry specific actions that might, in turn, create bad habits in the dog. For example, if your kids tease him or her with shoes, the puppy would likely grow up viewing shoes as a plaything. I’ve had to stop wearing my slippers at the moment because she sees them as a furry plaything that she must steal from me and attack!
You can prevent these harmful habits from being cultivated by letting your children understand that it is a privilege to own a pet and that all of you putting in some hard work now will mean that you have a happy, well-adjusted and well-behaved dog later on. Perhaps have them spend a bit less time with the dog to teach them what they have done wrong and the consequence of their actions to prevent it from happening again, and rewarding them when they look after the puppy really well.
Letting your children take part in taking care of a puppy is a great way to teach them responsibility. These tips on ways to teach your kids how to take care of a puppy do not only apply to dogs, but all other types of pets, whether you bought or adopted them.
This is a collaborative post.
Welcome to Birds and Lilies! I'm Lou: mother, blogger and freelance writer. This is my lifestyle blog, where I talk about motherhood, infertility and IVF, beauty, my love for food and wine, as well as my thoughts about stuff, and our real-life and travel adventures.
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The most helpful tip of your article was the one about teaching the kids to be gentle with the dog upon seeing it. My son is a very obedient little kid and the reason we’re getting a dog is that he has always wanted a pet, so we thought of rewarding him this way. I’ll make sure that I have some conversations with him about the dog and how to take care of it gently first before finding a pet store we can adopt our first puppy from.