Teach Your Kids to Love Pets 7 - Contributing

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets #7 – Kids Who Love Pets Love Volunteering to Help Pets

Contributing is one of the values that you can teach children through their love for pets. Americans are the most generous people in the world when it comes to contributing money and volunteering to help people that have lost their homes or endured hardships due to natural disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods or tsunamis. 

It’s difficult for kids to understand that they can help people in disasters like those, that are so often so far away from where we live. However, there are lots of ways that they can contribute in their own neighborhoods when it comes to volunteering for pet organizations, they always need help! Whether it’s the local pet shelter or the Humane Society or the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, they need food for the pets they shelter, money for supplies like towels, beds and blankets. Kids can ask friends and neighbors for old towels and blankets or collect money for the shelters. Kids can collect dog food to donate to the shelters. Kids can form clubs of other kids who are pet lovers and can create a neighborhood “watch” for lost pets. Kids participate in pet organizations that have “Walks” to raise money by getting sponsors to donate for each mile they walk their dogs. There are lots of ways that kids can volunteer for animal causes. 

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets 6 - Talk About Them

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets #6 – Pets Help Children Communicate

When our youngest child was 2 years old she hardly talked in more than single syllables and even those were few and far between. She didn’t have to talk, the older kids talked for her. (It was quite a switch from the first child who spoke in full sentences at 9 months.) Our little girl was blessed to have a Grandmother and an Aunt who were early childhood teachers. They thought something was wrong and they wanted her to be tested. We thought she would talk when she was ready. It was getting to be a family issue. 

One day her father took her with him to visit a buddy who lived on a farm. The farm family had a cat with a litter of kittens that needed new homes. Our daughter immediately picked out one and wouldn’t leave without it. It was completely black and she couldn’t wait to get home and show the rest of the family her kitten. She told me the kitten’s name was Cinder Mittens! I was stunned. She didn’t stop talking about that little kitty for about 12 hours – in fact maybe she’s never stopped talking since then! Two is a little young for having a pet but we told her why she had to be gentle, told her why we were feeding the kitty special food and told her why we were making a special bed with a clock under a pillow that ticked like a mother’s heart. 

Our talking about the kitty gave our daughter a desire to communicate with all of the family. She absorbed the words like a sponge and couldn’t wait to tell anyone and everyone how to care of the cat. Not many children will have such a break through experience, but talking to their pets and talking about their pets to other people does foster communication skills. It also gives children someone to talk to that doesn’t laugh at them or criticize them if they use the wrong word. Apparently pets will even laugh at their jokes! Cinder Mittens lived with us for the next 18 years. That was a couple years longer than our daughter did! Ever since she moved out she’s always had a cat or two. She has dogs too and even a horse - and we talk about them all every time we chat. Fostering communication and socialization are just two of the wonderful reasons we need to teach our children to love pets!

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets 5 - Pet Bed in Kids Room

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets # 5    Put the Pet Bed in Your Child’s Room

One of my friends has 5 children (a blended family) and luckily each child can have his/her own room – and their own dog! That’s a houseful! The family committed to that for many reasons. One was that old reliable “teaching the kids responsibility”. (Do we really think dogs were created to teach children responsibility?) But they went about the process right. 

When the child was about 8 years old, each child could chose and name his or her own dog. After they had been taught about pet care, the parents had modeled good pet care for a couple years, and they asked to take over the daily feeding and exercising of the dog, the reward was getting to have the dog sleep in their room. By then the kids were about 9 or 10. (It’s important to know when your child is ready and not insist on your time table.) 

Another reason they let the dogs sleep in the bedroom (but not in the child’s bed) was they knew the dog would alert the household and protect the child if someone tried to break in. You might think that’s very unlikely to happen, but if you think of the famous home kidnappings in the last couple of decades, none of them had a dog in the house. Nothing deters people like a barking dog or wakes you up better in the middle of the night. 

The children in this family were also lucky that the younger ones had older siblings who loved and cared for pets and were good examples of how to treat their dogs. If we want our children to grow up loving pets, we can do what this family did no matter what the pet species or how many or few children we have.

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets 4 - Take Them Along

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets # 4   Include Your Children When You Exercise Your Pet

People often take the dog with them when they take the kids to the park. That’s good! But how many take the kids with them when they walk the dog? Let kids see first hand how many people want to stop and pet your dog, talk to you about your dog, or admire your dog when you’re walking him. They will not only learn from you, but from other people. Talk to your pet. Talk to your children about your pet."I wonder what Rover is smelling as we walk along." Tell the kids facts about their pet as you walk along: "Did you know dogs can smell much better than we can?" Remark on who they talked to on their walk. “Wasn’t that nice when we met the lady with the black dog and she told us how beautiful Rover is and how well we’ve trained him? It made me really happy.” 

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets 3 - Get Them Involved

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets # 3 – Get the Kids Involved in Training Your Pets

Training your pet means teaching him the skills he needs to be a valued member of our family. That includes potty training, learning not to jump on people, sleeping in their own bed, (crate training is highly recommended), obedience and manners (come, down, sit and stay on command; walk correctly on a leash) and lastly, but as they say not least, a couple simple tricks. High five-ing and shaking hands delights children no end and are easy to teach a dog. It gives kids pride in their dog and a way to “show off” their dog to their friends.

Most of us were not born knowing how to train a dog, so read, ask questions, get help.  Most dogs need an adult to take control and assume the Alpha role for dog training. Take your kids with you to the dog trainer so they can watch and learn while you do.

Check with the shelter or breeder where you got your dog to see if they have a trainer to recommend, or ask the local pet store. Most pet stores have dog training on site or are associated with or can recommend a local dog trainer.There are also dog boot camps for hard to train dogs. You send them off to camp to be trained. Then at the end of their session, you go to camp to be trained too. There are also several National Associations of dog trainers that can help you locate a dog trainer when you need one:

• Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT): www.apdt.com
• International Association of Canine Professionals (IACP): www.canineprofessionals.com  
• Alumna of the www.AnimalBehaviorCollege.com
• National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors, Inc (NADOI): www.nadoi.org 

An interesting informational site is the Animal Behavior Society (ABS) www.AnimalBehaviorSociety.org  which promotes the study of animal behavior and publishes interesting articles in their newsletter.

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets 2 - Be An Example

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets #2  Be An Example

No matter what we say to our children, it’s what we DO that they remember. For children to learn to care for a pet, they need to see someone else take care of it. They need to listen to the way we talk to our pets and observe how we train our pets. If we want our children to grow up loving, caring for and living with pets, we have to show them how. 

We should demonstrate that brushing and grooming the dog, isn’t a “chore.” We need to tell them we bathe and take care of the dog for the same reasons we brush their hair and give them a bath. Dogs may not love a bath, although most of them don’t mind at all, but they love to feel clean! It will be very obvious to your child that a dog feels good after his bath. Be sure to tell them Rover feels frisky and full of energy after his bath because he feels good being clean.

We need to learn what to expect from puppy behavior. Puppies, in particular, can cause a lot of damage to the home by chewing. It’s a natural thing for puppies who are cutting teeth, just like babies, to chew everything. Give them appropriate things to chew. Put away things that aren’t appropriate. Above all, we don’t want to lose our temper when they do chew up a shoe that’s been left out, or the leg of a chair when they've been left alone. We can explain how unhappy we are, but we shouldn't blame the puppy. Chewing is another good reason to learn about crate training. 

No one should adopt a pet because they want their children to learn responsibility. We should adopt a pet because We want a pet to be a member of our family. When we feed and water the dog, we can use language that will impress upon children the importance of caring for the pet. Example: “Yes, we will make cinnamon toast this morning, but first we have to give Rover his breakfast. He’s as hungry as we are and he needs a drink of fresh water. After that he has to go outside again to go to the bathroom.”

Don’t delegate the care of the pet to children, model the things we do to care for our pets so our children will learn what’s necessary and eventually want to help. If they hear us praise the dog when he accomplishes a task we're teaching him, it's a positive message to them too. Let them hear us speak firmly to the dog when we tell him “down.” When we've shown that taking care of Rover is the natural thing for us to do the kids will eventually want to help.Gradually “let” them help with the care of the dog.

Kids love to give dogs treats. When the dog “sits” when we tell him to, we can let the kids give him a treat. Show them how to praise the dog and pet him when they give him a reward. Talk about a time in the future when they may be old enough to care for him. When that transition comes, remember we can ask them if we can still help out once in awhile!

The saddest thing that can happen to pets, kids - and the whole family, is to adopt a pet and then expect children to magically be able to assume responsibility for their care. They have to be old enough to understand and they have to be taught. We have to be a good example.

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets 1 - Show Them How

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.