Month: August 2016

Pets and Kids: Part 2 Supervision!!

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To be blunt - any child needs to be supervised when they are around pets. Babies and toddlers are not in control of their motor skills. Our pets don’t like something that just moves without control and heads right for them. In some cases, the pet will move away. It’s up to you, the parent to be sure the child doesn’t chase the pet around (that will only cause stress and the child could be bitten or scratched).

Supervision is an active process. You need to be not only aware of where your child is, but where the pet is and what body language is your pet saying to you? For example, ears back, panting and or licking is a sign of stress in dogs and they are not happy. Supervision is not scrolling through social media on your phone with the dog and baby on the floor. It only takes a moment for an accident to happen.

FamilyPaws.com is a great resource for new parents and for parents of toddlers with dogs. They have a wonderful webinar on the details of what proper supervision is. The webinar is about 30 minutes and it is time well spent. Click here to watch their webinar: http://familypaws.co … egory/uncategorized/. I hope you enjoy it!

Remember folks, you are the one to enforce the agency of your pet when it comes to either kids or people in general invading their space.

Pets and Kids: Part 1 Fostering a good relationship from the beginning.

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In my travels, one topic that tends to garner a lot of discussion is children around pets. In most cases, damage has already been done with a child being bitten or scratched due to a lack of supervision of some kind. Ultimately, it is the pet who will pay the price and wind up being re-homed or in a shelter.

It doesn’t have to be like that. Kids do not need to wind up with bite marks and the pets do not have to be re-homed or surrendered. It is my hope that with this blog, that I can share information from my experiences as an Animal Communication Counselor to help you have a better sense of understanding and help your pets have a great relationship with your (or anyone’s) kids. Since the topic of pets and kids is a large one, this blog will be broken down into a series of posts touching on the important elements of not only building a good relationship between kids and pets, but giving a clear picture of what responsible supervision looks like.

The pets relationship with the child begins in utero. A lot of new parents will be concerned about how the pup will react to having a new baby. As long as the new parents can include the pet (this includes cats) in the activities of getting the nursery ready and even telling them about a new being being added to the  pack/family unit, that will go a long way to avoiding jealousy or destructive  behaviors.

Once the baby is born, again..let your pet be involved with taking care of the baby! If you constantly push the pet away anytime you are doing an activity with your newborn, you are inviting destructive behaviors to happen (chewing on the furniture, peeing/pooping on the carpet, chewing things that belong to the baby..etc). Of course you want to make sure that your pup isn’t getting into the diaper genie or trash can to shred used baby wipes!

Remember, our pets understand things on a much deeper level than what we once thought. Talk to them like the intelligent beings that they are to let them know a change is coming. Really let them be part of the family and part of the process. Pets have been known to be closer and more “clingy” to the mothers when they are pregnant. They get it.

Compassion and Understanding is for all beings.