Teach Your Kids to
love Pets - Show them How to Care for Pets
All kids seem to have a natural desire to love pets. As
Charles Schulz said, who can resist “a warm puppy”? Puppies, kittens, bunnies, critters, and some birds are
small, warm, soft and irresistible. Even ponies fall into this category on a
different scale. They’re all cuddly, trusting and innocent, just like babies!
It’s our job as parents to teach children to learn “how” to
love and care for pets. Although most pet experts say that the best age for a
child to adopt a pet is around age 8, even the smallest child wants to hug and
love a pet. It’s the greatest opportunity to teach children the meaning of
being gentle. They have to be taught not to squeeze or hurt a pet. We need to
give them the experience of hugging and cuddling a pet and make their first
introductions to pets positive ones. With constant supervision we can help small
children live with pets, but we can’t expect them to take care of pets until
they are school age. Further, we have to teach them how to take care of pets by
modeling how to do it ourselves.
This blog is mostly about dogs, but we love all pets and you
can adapt these thoughts to other pets. I’ve been overwhelmed in the last 20
years by how smart animals are. I remember the first time I saw one of the
Purina teams, who travel around the country putting on shows with animals,
demonstrate how to teach cats to walk across tightropes! It’s also amazing the
things we can learn about our pets ourselves – and with the internet and
television pet shows we have an abundance of resources for learning about our
pets.
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