Teach Your Kids to Love Pets 9 - Share Your Pets

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets

One warm, sunny Saturday morning Sami and I headed to our favorite main street restaurant for breakfast. When we got out of the car the first thing we saw was a man at the sidewalk café eating his breakfast and reading the paper. Next two him were two large, beautiful parrots. One was blue and yellow, the other red and green. They were stunning. We’d only seen parrots like that on television. Sami immediately wanted to go see the parrots. I held her back and told her it would be rude to interrupt the man when he was enjoying his breakfast. “Let’s go have our breakfast and if he’s finished when we come back, we’ll ask him if he will tell us about his parrots.” She reluctantly agreed, not quite sure she wanted to do that, but the puppies in the pet store next door quickly got our attention. We had our pancakes and were on our way back to the car when we saw the man still sitting at the café. As we approached he said, “I’ve been waiting for you. It was so nice of you not to interrupt my meal, I wanted you to meet my parrot friends.” Then he told her about the parrots and how friendly they were. He let her hold one of them – cradling him upside down in her arms, like you’d hold a baby!” What a delightful experience it was for all of us! People who love pets are happy to share their animals.   

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets 8 - Activities for Pets

Teach Your Kids to Love Pets # 8 – Select in an Activity or Sport For Your Pet

As part of the family, Pets deserve to participate in an activity just as much as the kids need to play a sport or learn a musical instrument. We encourage our kids to develop interests in activities that will challenge them cognitively or will develop their small and large muscles and their coordination. Our pets deserve a full life that will also develop their brains and provide the exercise they need to be healthy. 


Some herding dogs are extremely smart and need a lot of exercise. They make good agility contestants or fly ball candidates. Terriers are good at agility too. Many dogs have so much energy they will fetch a ball all day long. Joining a club of other dogs that fetch for fun may be good for them. Bloodhounds are scent hounds and make good search and rescue dogs. A dog with a pedigree would be good for participating in Show Dog Conformation. Some dogs need socialization with other dogs and trips to the dog park are good for them. Learn about the characteristics of your particular dog's breed and find out what the best activity for your dog might be. Teaching children that we need to spend time with our dogs and let them do what they like best is a good lesson that teaches kids how to love pets.


Check out our list of the many sports and activities that you can do with your pet and pick one that suits your family the most. Choose something to do with your pet that will be fun for your family! You’ll meet life long friends. Your kids will see that other people enjoy and value their pets and will witness other families training their pets.

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.