Teaching children how to be dog-safe
Vikki Pickering is offering free dog safety lessons with a goal to teach ‘‘every child in every primary school, Nelson-wide’’ in 2018.
Pickering, a professional dog trainer and behavioural consultant, said that the idea occurred to her from seeing interactions between children and their family dogs.
‘‘Parents know about the obvious things, like tail-pulling ... but they often allow other behaviours which are quite unsafe,’’ she said.
Many family pets are very tolerant, she said, but people often ‘‘don’t realise when dogs are close to snapping’’.
Pickering said 77 per cent of dog bites were family pets biting children, and many happen because of miscommunication between humans and dogs.
Pickering said these bites were avoidable with proper training - for people as well as for dogs.
‘‘Just like people, tolerance varies with every dog.
‘‘There are some dogs that will let you lie all over them, but the problem is that children then go to other dogs and treat them the same way,’’ said Vikki.
In fact, usually the children whose parents say are very confident and good with dogs are less safe around dogs because ‘‘they get in [the dog’s] space’’.
A big part of the lesson is showing children how to tell if a dog is happy and relaxed or stressed and tense, based on body-language.
She said the most common mistake she saw, from both chil- dren and adults, was people patting dogs on the head.
‘‘If [the dogs] don’t know the person, they don’t like it. It’s quite intimidating for them,’’ she said.
Dogs generally don’t like any- thing getting too close to their face or being hugged.
After teaching the children what not to do, she shows them some simple games and tricks that children can play with their dogs.
‘‘Kids are touchy-feely [with pets], and this gives them a fun way to interact with their dog in a way that the dog actually loves,’’ she said.
Pickering brings her own dog, Asha, to these classes.
‘‘I’m really focussed on making [the classes] a positive experience for the kids, and positive for the dogs as well,’’ Vikki said.