Personal Space

Dogs like their own space.. and so do your kids!

Personal space is an amazing thing! It is quite important to most humans... Maybe even more important than ever before since the COVID pandemic hit. We all suddenly became very aware of how close we were to each other and our 6 foot bubble. As humans we have our own sacred space in terms of property too... Our homes, bedrooms and even our bathrooms if you really get down to the minutia. If someone enters that space uninvited, it will certainly elicit an angry, scared, confused or sudden response from us. 

It is interesting though, often when I mention personal space in reference to dogs, people look at me with their head tilted to the side almost like it is some thing they never considered before. I always wondered why we (usually) respect each others personal space but we don't think of it when referencing our dogs? 

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A multitude of dog bites come from a dog being bothered when it is resting or when they have their personal space violated. This is such an easy rule to follow! Allow interaction by having your dog go to your kids, not the other way around. For example, if your dog is sleeping on their dog bed and your child wants to cuddle. While well intentioned.. how annoying to the dog? This of it in human terms mentioned above. If you're resting in your bed and your friend barges in and plops down next to you? You may or MAY NOT like that. Most of the time, our dogs tolerate this kind of behavior over and over again because they trust us and are usually good natured. However, tolerance level goes down over time. If your friend barged in on you in your bed room once a week... you may be more annoyed the 5th time then if they did it once and never to be done again. 

When you teach these boundaries to your child, show your child that your dog has to follow that same. Don't allow your dog to bug your child when they're resting, in bed or eating. Your child will learn mutual respect of another being and it will surely grow the trust between the entire family. ​

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