Thursday, April 15, 2010

Cluelessness, parental version

I love seeing kids and dogs together. The dogs I grew up with highlighted my childhood, and to this day I am a total sucker for sentimental kids-and-dogs movies, and have been known to watch reruns of Timmy and Lassie well into adulthood. But even I, as sentimental as I am, know that kids and dogs together can also be disasters waiting to happen. Generally, that's not the fault of either the kids or the dogs. The blame lies squarely with their clueless parents.

Take the two little girls I saw yesterday afternoon while Allie and I were walking. They couldn't have been older than early grade school -- seven years old at most -- but they were walking a bouncy puppy who was at least two-thirds their size, with nary an adult in sight. As I watched them, I was imagining all kinds of worst case scenarios in which they could lose control of that puppy, such as:

-- the puppy getting *really* bouncy and knocking one or both of them over.
-- the puppy seeing a squirrel cross its path and deciding to give chase, dragging one of the little girls behind him.
-- the puppy reacting -- strenuously -- to the barking of either the two dogs whose house they were passing or crossing the street and running afoul of the dog who charges at her fence whenever she sees another canine passing.

I could just see the parents opining that the little girls needed to learn about being responsible, which is why they'd gotten the dog in the first place, yadda yadda yadda. But I found myself hoping that those little girls wouldn't learn instead about what it's like to see their dog die because their parents had no idea what responsibilities to lay on their children and when.

7 comments:

Shauna (Fido & Wino) said...

Stuff like that DRIVES ME CRAZY.

It also baffles me when I see kids unattended at the dog park with a bunch of dogs playing all crazy around them. Do parents not know how quickly things can wrong with a group of dogs?

Or when parents haven't taught their kids not to just go walking up to dogs they don't know. Why don't parents teach their kids to protect themselves with dogs?

I dunno. Don't get it!

Susan said...

Wow. Unattended at the dog park?? I've seen parents with kids under 8 at our local park, but never unattended. That's just nuts.

Roxanne @ Champion of My Heart said...

These sights scare me too. So much can go wrong.

My niece really, really wants to hold the leash when we walk Lilly, and I let her, but I'm right there, and if I see *anything* that might make Lilly flip, I take the reins for a while ... just to be sure.

Susan said...

How old is your niece, Roxanne?

KB said...

I'm with you all the way. Somehow, it seems that when dog owners become parents, a switch is thrown in their heads that causes them to make very bad decisions for everyone involved...

That was probably a much too broad statement but I've had a few personal experiences like the one you described that were overseen by formerly awesome dog owners...

KB said...

Ooops, I forgot one thing. My 4 and 6 year old nephews always want to hold the leash, but we hold on *with* them, knowing that our dogs could take them for quite a ride if the right stimulus appears! Two leashes on one dog has been another trick that's worked (an adult holds one and the kid holds the other).

Susan said...

I understand what you're saying, KB, even though I made it a point to get my 11-year-old dog ready for welcoming a human baby into our family 21-some years ago. Lack of sleep and the whole tunnel-vision aspect of parenting can make for some humongous misjudgments on the part of new parents. But these little girls were way past infancy -- time enough, one would think, for the parents to recover some semblance of sanity.
And your ideas re managing kids and leashed dogs are spot on, IMO.