Next week is National Dog Bite Prevention Week. Next week you will no doubt see a lot of information about dog bites -- some intended to help, some intended to scare the hell out of you so you buy something.
I really do appreciate those that are sending info out to help people prevent dog bites (in a positive way).
I've mentioned it here on numerous occassions -- but dogs are incredibly safe parts of our daily lives. However, with 78 million+ owned dogs in this country, nearly all with sharp teeth, inevitably some incidents occur.
Most major incidents involve small children. And I'm always greatful when the group Dogs & Storks comes out with information that helps new parents to successfully, and safely, integrate dogs and young children together.
Tonight at 9 pm EST, Animal Cafe will be hosting a live chat with Jen Shyrock, the founder of Dogs & Storks. You can read more about the Dogs & Storks program over at Animal Cafe -- including a 26 minute Podcast with Jen -- and then ask her any questions you might have during tonight's live Chat.
BTW, Dogs & Storks has also released a series of new Parent Education Classes on CD that you can check out here. Or, if you want something more personal, you can find a Dogs & Storks presenter near you.
If we can help parents to overcome the transition of integrating dogs and children together (which is fairly easy, but doesn't just happen on its own), we can make a dramatic positive impact on the number of children who are serious injured by dogs in this country. Also, dogs not getting along with new babies is a leading cause of dogs being relinquished by owners to the shelter. Both of these issues are inherently fixable. And fixing it would be very cool. No fear. No doomsday. Just a little work and education.
For more, see earlier interviews with Jen:
Dogs & Children Living Safely in Homes -- KC Dog Blog
Preventing Dog Bites in Children - KC Dog Blog
Dogs & Babies Meet - Pet Safety - From Dancing Dog Blog
Talking About the Dog and Baby Connection - From DogsSpelled Forward
Enjoy. And thanks to Jen and Eric Goebelbecker for putting all of this together.
Biting is a dog's defense mechanism, something you can't train out of a dog no matter how much he or she fares at home. What we can do is ascertain that our pets' bites will not harm anyone by having them immunized.
Posted by: Ethan Rehman | December 15, 2011 at 12:48 PM