As an animal welfare scientist, mother of two young daughters, and someone who recently adopted a rescue dog, there are a few bits of knowledge I wish I could inject directly into my daughters’ heads. These are bits of information that are counterintuitive to young humans but essential to kicking off and maintaining a safe relationship with our new dog, Barley.

As I’ve written about before (here and here), we have some extremely smooth avenues of communication with our pets that have been established by thousands of years of living alongside each other. However, when we interact with our pets, we are still communicating with a different species. This cross-species communication generates opportunities for unfortunate, and sometimes dangerous, miscommunications. Teaching children these four things will increase the chances that dogs will feel comfortable, and that children will be safe around them.

Teaching kids these four things will help dogs feel more comfortable, and help keep children safe.

1. Yawning probably means your dog is nervous, not tired.

Dogs yawn to release nervous energy. So do we, actually! Sure, dogs can also yawn when they are tired, but if your dog is tired, he’s probably obviously tired, sprawled out, curled up, or asleep. If your dog is awake, alert, and yawning, he’s doing his best to hold back some nervous energy. In a sense, energy escapes into the yawn, giving him a bit of release. This is a good time to give him some room. When a dog is nervous, he feels less secure and is more likely to nip or bite. I have told my girls several times, “If he yawns, he is saying he is nervous. Let’s give him some space.”

Photo by Fabian Gieske on Unsplash. Dog yawning.

2. A wagging tail does not mean your dog is happy.

Of course kids think that a wagging tail is the sign of a happy dog! I thought so too, and many adults still think so. Dogs do wag their tails when they are happy, but they also wag their tails when they are nervous, aroused, alert, on the offensive, and on the defensive. The wags look different to a trained eye (see a diagram here), but to a kid, a wagging tail is just a wagging tail. Kids should know that it cannot be taken as a sign that the dog is happy at the moment. When the girls point out Barley’s wagging tail, I ask, “What else do you see his body telling us?” We use other signals to decode his emotions. We talk about whether his ears are forward and his body is loose. But we don’t put much stock in the tail.

3. Dogs don’t like hugs.

Dogs generally don’t like hugs. This one is such a bummer for my four-year-old! She is all about snuggles and she thought a new dog would basically be a big stuffed animal. Her initial tendency, understandably, was to stand right beside Barley and drape her arm, or worse, her whole upper body, over his neck and back. Most dogs are not comfortable with hugs. Why exactly they don’t like hugs is up for debate. Some think it is because someone is signaling their dominance over them. Others talk about how the dog feels trapped, not in control, or feels physically uncomfortable from the pressure. It may be a mix of all of the above. Regardless of the reason, it’s clear in Barley’s body language (and most other dogs) that he is not comfortable. He stands rigid with his ears back and (lucky for us) tolerates it. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable or put him in the position to have to rise above the situation. So ”Dogs don’t like hugs” became another common phrase in our first weeks together.

4. Don’t put your face in his face.

As an adult it is obvious. Don’t put your face in the dog’s face. As a child, apparently, not so much. When you’re young, one of the best way to get someone’s attention is to put your face directly in front of theirs. Both my children had a habit of putting their hands on either side of my face and literally turning my head so that my face was just inches from theirs to get my full attention. It’s an effective strategy, albeit rude. Children eager to engage with a dog will try a similar strategy, putting their face level with and right in front of the dog’s face. My daughters have also gotten down on the floor next to our resting dog and put their faces right up to Barley’s face. Staring directly into a dog’s face from inches away can be scary or threatening to a dog. Again, we don’t want our dogs to be uncomfortable, and we certainly don’t want to put them in situations where nipping or biting is a sensible response. Especially when a child’s face is inches from their mouth.

Help spread the word!

This may seem like a negative post. Just note, this isn’t the first version of this post. That one was titled “Four hundred and sixty-seven things you’ll say to your kids a dozen times a day if you adopt a dog.” In all seriousness, taking a moment to recognize the miscommunications that can happen between our children and our pets, and doing what we can to head them off, is likely to help keep everyone comfortable and safe together.

Please share this post with others who may be working to safely navigate kid-dog communications. If you have some lessons you’ve shared with kids to support safe interactions with dogs, feel free to share some of your own teachings in the comments below or in the Happy Pets Facebook group here. This post came about in response to one of your questions; feel free to send along more questions and suggestions for topics. Finally, subscribe below to receive an email when a new blog is posted. Thanks for reading!

Four things to teach kids about dog communication to keep them safe