When my first dog, Ember, was barely a year old, I took him with me to a pet supply store to pick out a new toy. And, somewhere in the aisles, we met a woman who was browsing the store with her small daughter. Although Ember was young, we’d been dutifully socializing him, and he adored our next-door neighbor, who was just older than this girl.
“Okay,” I thought, “we know how to do this.” I put him in a sit-stay, and the girl came over and decorously petted him. Everything seemed on the up-and-up, and the mother turned back to the racks of toys.
And that’s when it happened.
The girl, unhappy that Ember’s head was turned away, stuck both her small hands in his ears, and jerked forward with all her little-kid might. Pulling his head, mouth- and teeth-first, straight towards her face. I froze. I had never prepared for such a scenario with Ember. He was a young dog, and, if I were him, by all means I would have snapped at the girl. I wanted to pull his mouth away from her face, but this wasn’t an option with her hands solidly in his ears. I was afraid, too, of startling either dog or child with too stern a verbal warning.
“Uhhhhh,” I muttered, barely containing my panic while the mom obliviously fingered dog products. ”Uhmmmmmm.” It was probably only a few seconds, at most, but they dragged on. While the little girl squealed and pulled, it seemed, harder and harder.
The mother finally saw and dragged her daughter away, much to my relief. And Ember learned to keep his distance from children he didn’t know. I don’t know what I would have done that day if something had happened. I know my heart would have broken for everyone involved.
These days I’m much more cautious with children and dogs, and often choose not to introduce dogs I’m caring for to strange children. (One of my interview questions for new dog clients always involves how they deal with children.) No matter how much we trust our pups, both dogs and children can be unpredictable, so I make sure to always stay between them, where I can intercept if either makes a sudden movement. Still, I’m lucky to have emerged without incident from an early lesson in the necessity of not only socializing our dogs, but also teaching our children how to safely interact with animals (especially other people’s).
