New Puppy Equals New Stress

[Francine]

Crate is the magic word! I have a three year old Giant Schnauzer (Archie) Archie loves his crate, if the door is closed he will paw at it or sit outside of it until we open it for him. It's his bed and he loves it! We don't crate him anymore when we leave the house but during the day he is either upstairs in my bedroom, outside or in the crate I don't allow him to run around the house with the kids. I actually use the top of his crate as my changing table, it works great!

[permanentvacation]

Did you get your puppy for your personal children or your daycare kids? Personally, I have never and will never allow my daycare children to touch my pets. That rule is mainly for the safety of my pets. You never know what parents allow their children to do to their own pets. I actually have had a daycare kid try to RIDE my dog!!!! I lost my mind and yelled at the kid because he could have broken my dog's back!!!! The mother literally told me that it's okay, he rides their dog at home all the time!!!!!!! UH NO!!!!!!! Dogs are not horses!!!!!!!

Not only do children do things that parents seem to think are okay, but they also fall on pets, , accidently step on, pull their ears, tail, hit the puppy, kick the puppy, etc. You just never know what children will do to an animal or what their parents have allowed them to do that they think is alright to do.

My opinion, if you bought the dog for your daycare children, you need to watch out for your puppy at all times so the children don't hurt it. The puppy and as it grows up, needs it's own space that the children are not allowed in that it can go to where it can get away from the children if it wants/needs to.

If you bought the puppy for your personal children, then it needs to be kept away from the daycare children so they don't hurt your children's pet and your children have to be upset over their puppy being hurt or dead from what the daycare children did to it.

I'm sure some of you will think I'm horrible for thinking that it's not the cutest thing to get a puppy for a bunch of little kids - I just know what I have seen some of my daycare kids do to my pets which led me to make the rule that no daycare child is allowed to touch my pets at all.

[frgsonmysox]

Definitely crate train. And don't let the dog snap or nibble at the kids, for any reason. This is completely unacceptable behaviour, and the sooner you stop it the better. A stern, "no!" works well. We have a 20 month old Golden/Huskie who is amazing with our kids. We brought him home when he was 8 weeks old, and crate trained from the get go. Our kids can be quite rough with him, but he never responds harshly. His crate is his territory. If the kids are bothering him too much he goes in the crate and they leave him alone. He also goes in there at night and when we leave the house. We call it his "room" so his command is "Go to your room!" because it sounded less like a punishment that way.