My son is mixing dogs with very young children and I am concerned

Judycat

Well-known Member
Location
Pennsylvania
A week or so ago my son announced he and his wife were getting a puppy. I wasn't ecstatic but the puppy they got, a female eski-doodle, was under six months old. Their children are 1 and 3 years old. I merely told him to get lots of puppy pads and chew toys and don't end up tying her to a box outside somewhere. He said she would be in the house and yes they are planning on getting her spayed. Good.

Today my son sent a SnapChat regarding another dog they brought home. This one is about six months old and a male labra-doodle. I asked if they were thinking of breeding them. He said he wasn't sure yet. I worked at the Humane Society and this is a big no-no. I believe they are looking at the money they might collect rather than the work involved in raising pups. This is a big disappointment for me.

That's one thing. The other is their kids being so young. Granted when I was raising kids we had a dog, but I was home all day. I was there when I looked out the window and saw the dog walking funny. She was low down and moving very slowly. Turned out she was stalking the same kid I'm talking about above. He was around 3 at the time. Before I got out the door, the dog had him down on the ground already. The kid wasn't doing anything to the dog, he was just walking around. This particular dog was a sweet, gentle dog otherwise. I got there before she did any damage, so thank God for that, but both my son and his wife work. What are they doing getting two dogs and thinking of running a breeding business? You get one, see how things go before you add another. SMH.

I was honest and told him what I thought. Told him to please get them both fixed, told him about what happened when he was a 3-year-old, told him dogs are nice but they are wolves at heart. Don't want to be too much of a busy-body, probably already crossed that line, but man my heart aches after seeing how many dogs end up at the animal shelter or tied to a dog box behind the house. I noticed lately the number is down at the Humane Society and that could be good or bad. It could be people are at home more and taking care of their pets, or they are getting rid of them and more are being euthanized. Really bugs me. Ah what can ya do. Hope for the best I guess. Damn kid.
 

As you say, both young animals and young children need to be constantly watched. It's unfortunate they didn't stop at one puppy, to see how that goes first. It's an understatement to say, "what a handful".
 

Make no mistake, dogs and kids can be toxic. Children have a difficult time understanding that a dog is not a toy and get quite rough so I understand your concern. As to your dog taking your son down when he was a toddler, my shepherd did the same to my son while we were outside and he was simply standing by me. My shepherd was about 9 at the time, but extremely jealous of my son. The vet said she had to be put down which broke my heart.
 
Too much work, hmm, but they could keep the puppies and get rid of the 😂, suppose that wouldn’t work, yup, pups gotta go probably.
 
Gee, I feel for you Judycat. I love dogs but I also feel the children are too young and as far as having 2 dogs with a young family when both work does not sound good.

Does a babysitter come in or do the kids go to daycare? Do they plan on crating these pups all day long?
The wife's family does a lot of the babysitting now with Corona virus restrictions. I'm sure a lot of smiles will be turning upside down. Don't get me started on crating puppies all day.
 
I just saw in our local paper labradoodles are $1100 a pup! What a racket.
the guy who "invented" the labradoodle has REGRETS!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/labradoodle-creator-regret.html

how old is you son and dil? own their home or rent? do they have a yard? a FENCED-IN yard? have they had pets dogs before? labs are notorious chewers and BIG dogs. worst case scenario... poor dog(s) being blamed for what comes naturally to them... chewing up things that are not put away. children injured but dogs unable to explain what happened. i had a dog hit me in the face with paw. i was asleep, abruptly awakened, off to ER and TWELVE stitches under my eye. a dog that ends up not quite house broken... 8, 10, 12 years.
 
the guy who "invented" the labradoodle has REGRETS!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/labradoodle-creator-regret.html

how old is you son and dil? own their home or rent? do they have a yard? a FENCED-IN yard? have they had pets dogs before? labs are notorious chewers and BIG dogs. worst case scenario... poor dog(s) being blamed for what comes naturally to them... chewing up things that are not put away. children injured but dogs unable to explain what happened. i had a dog hit me in the face with paw. i was asleep, abruptly awakened, off to ER and TWELVE stitches under my eye. a dog that ends up not quite house broken... 8, 10, 12 years.
My son is old enough to know better. They just moved into a bigger house, close, but not in town. No fenced in yard but lots of room to run.

Don't know about his wife, but there was a time we had three dogs living in the house with us. I was in charge of their care, so I'm not sure if my son remembers the full experience of what puppy/dog care entails, but he was there and old enough to witness plenty of it. Some of my furniture still has tooth marks.

Yes labs can be quite exuberant. One took a piece of my finger off at the shelter. He was just excited to be moved outside.

Not quite housebroken? What a way to christen your new home, eh?

Good luck to them, but I will keep hammering about being careful with the children.
 
I feel your heart Judycat. As an animal lover I can't comprehend dogs as a commodity to be bought and sold. Indiscriminate breeding leads to unpredictable pups if not loved and socialized. The animal shelters are sadly full of those examples. A local rescue where I live sells a bumper sticker "Don't breed or buy while shelter animals die".
 
IMO young kids and dogs are not good mix what’s going to happen when one of the dogs jumps up for a pat or to maybe snatch something out of the youngsters hand and may accidentally scratch the child ....Who’s going to be blamed ..the dogs.

I feel these dogs will be eventually end up on the unwanted dogs list.

Wonder if your son has taken vet costs into consideration let alone the costs feeding / grooming/ flea and worm medication .
picking up litter .
 
when niece & nephew were little, they were often at my house with their parents. i had 2 red Dobies at that time. before kids were attempting to walk, dogs had little/no interest in them. once they started getting vertical, dogs avoided them like the plague. the kids were unsteady on their feet and that bothered dogs. once fully ambulatory, dogs LOVED them. typical 2-3 year old very often had something to eat... at were either easy to take from or willing to share!
 
I probably wouldn't be as stressed out as I am had I not witnessed the dumb stuff otherwise normal somewhat intelligent people expected when it came to having a large animal like a dog living with them. One mother returned a dog because it growled when the kids climbed and tried to sit on it. She wanted a dog that didn't do that. :rolleyes:
 
i dont believe in very young like 3 to 5 having a new dog ' these cross breeds can be quite
tempremental with babes -as we know the child has not got a clue when enough is enough so it ends
up biting them ' then all hell breaks lose in the home , there has been terrible attacks with dogs which has ended with death
so this is why iam so against it ' i adore dogs and cats .. !!
 
For the past couple of years we've toyed with getting a second dog. When going through the petfinder and other listings, the overwhelming number of available dogs are pit bulls, German shepherds, rottweilers and mixes thereof. Homeowner's insurance policy won't cover them if there's an incident, which tells me that these breeds have more serious, reportable incidents than most.

It's truly sad to see photo after photo of these (mostly) unadoptable animals.

Many years ago we were on the couch watching TV, our first child sitting quietly on the floor in front of us. Completely unprovoked, our 6 year old cockapoo raced across the room and bit her in the face. An 8 month old baby had to get stitches on her upper cheek. Dog was put down (which I took some sh!! for from a couple of friends). It was a terrible experience.

Not too long after, a beautiful, extraordinarily gentle golden retriever started hanging around our place. He belonged to no one, it seemed. (The days before chipping.) We traced him to a local factory; the employees said that they fed him every day but nobody there owned him. We adopted him and had him about four years but he was a wanderer (yes, he'd been fixed). By the time I had three little kids I could no longer organize chasing him when he escaped.

One day he got out and I just let him go. About a week later we're driving a couple of streets over and see a man in his 60s walking Duke on a leash. The kids got so excited and wanted me to reclaim him. I said, "No. He's where he needs to be now. He was with our family when we needed him and he needed us. He's found another person who needs him and who he needs."

p.s. I'm not attacking any particular breeds. I've had several wonderful, gentle German shepherd mixes as part of my family.
 
How unfortunate about the dog biting your child, @StarSong! This reminds me that a dog, like a human, may suddenly become confused or "snap" however rare it is in a breed engineered for gentleness. They, like us, are all predators after all.

Interesting about Duke. I guess that boy is just a sweet, fickle wanderer at heart.
 


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