Keeping Your Kid Safe Around Dogs And Your Dog Safe Around Kids

As far as Parental Unit knows, I've never even come close to biting anyone or anything, and I seem to enjoy children, but...

One can never be too careful when dogs and children are in close proximity, as this piece from The New York Times blog, "Motherlode", so eloquently points out. We feel terribly sorry for the mother and little boy, but take heart at her sensible bite-avoidance advice, and agree that most dog bites are entirely preventable. The author provides some excellent advice for keeping your children of all ages safe around dogs. And we can't help but believe that these same strategies can and should be used by adults with all dogs-even your own.

As Parental Unit found out last evening, we dogs can be unpredictable. We had our front gate stolen last year (there was a rash of iron thefts in our neighborhood and ours was one of the 20 or so gates stolen) and Parental Unit has not had it replaced...yet. She's just been extra careful opening the front door and the back wooden gate to our backyard...and after five years, had begun to trust me.

Well, last night, I dashed out the backyard gate, out the front "opening" where the closed gate should have been and took off down the street on the sidewalk at full speed. I turned into the street just as I heard Parental Unit scream my name...and decided I'd better turn around and run back home. Parental Unit took awhile to recover and was shaky for the rest of the night, but she claims to have learned her lesson. No telling whether I have, though...

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