Episode #279 Puppy & Kids — Safe Play Rules That Actually Work

Puppies and kids can be the best of friends—but only when adults provide the guidance and structure both need to succeed.

In this updated version of one of our most popular early episodes, we revisit puppy-and-child interactions using today's best practices in dog training and canine behavior. You'll learn why supervision matters, how to teach children the "Be a Tree" technique, when and how to use consent tests before petting, and simple handling exercises that help puppies feel comfortable with human touch.

We'll also share practical family rules, common mistakes to avoid, and easy parent coaching scripts that help children learn to respect canine communication and boundaries.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The four safe play rules every family should follow
• How to teach children to respond when puppies become too excited
• Why consent tests can improve safety and trust
• Positive handling exercises for paws, ears, collars, and grooming
• Early signs a puppy may need space
• Parent-friendly language that encourages safe interactions

A few simple habits can help create a lifelong bond between your puppy and the children in your life. Tune in to learn how.

Transcript

Why Puppies And Kids Get Tricky

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today, we're revisiting one of our older episodes called Puppies and Kids. So if you have kids and you have a puppy, this episode is for you. Welcome to the Puppy Training Podcast, the show designed to help you raise a confident, well-behaved puppy using positive practical training methods. Each week we'll explore real-life training strategies, break down common puppy challenges, and give you clear, step-by-step guidance you can start using right away. Whether you're dealing with potty training, biting, jumping, or just want to build a stronger bond with your pupp as their handler, you're in the right place. Hi you guys, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Amy Jensen. We love talking dogs and puppies and kids and teenagers, all of it, right? So if you have kids in your home and you have a puppy, let's help you out because this is going to be something that you're going to deal with on a daily basis. Now, if you've been with us for a while, you may remember episode six where we talked about helping kids and puppies live safely and happily together. Today we're just going to revisit that topic and we're going to help you with supervision. We're going to help you with what your child can do, a basic thing they can do to help that interaction be good. We're going to help you with teaching your kids consent tests. So seeing if the dog wants to interact with them. We're going to talk about handling exercises that will help your puppy enjoy human touch. And then parent coaching scripts that you can use today and the biggest uh pitfalls or mistakes I see families make when introducing puppies and children. So whether you have toddl or school-age children, grandchildren, or frequent uh young visitors in your neighborhood, this episode is going to help us all stay safe while building positive relationships with our dogs. Okay,

Supervision Is Not Optional

SPEAKER_00 1:43

now why puppies and kids can be a challenging combination. Why is that a problem sometimes? Most families imagine their puppy and child becoming instant best friends. The reality, puppies are babies. Children are still learning impulse control. And if we put those two together, there could be some misunderstandings. Now, a puppy may see a running child and think, game on. That looks so fun. A child may see a sleeping puppy and think, oh, it's time for cuddles. Now, neither is trying to cause problems. They're simply communicating in different ways. Now, our goal as parents and trainers is to become translators. We want to help our children understand dogs and how they speak. So we can help puppies learn how to similarly live successfully around human children because they don't know that right away. And we never expect either one to figure it out on their own. We have to teach them. So rule number one: supervision is not optional. Let's just start with this one. No child and puppy should be left together unsupervised. Not for a minute. Not because your puppy is good, not because your child is great with dogs, not because they've never had a problem before. Most incidences occur when adults assume that everything is fine. So supervision means we're actively observing. We're close enough to hear and see body language. We're close enough to step in and intervene if needed. We're close enough to coach our children on what to do or what not to do. And if you can't actively supervise, then create some separation. So we use baby gates, exercise pens, crates, puppy safe rooms. Again, management is not failure. Management is prevention. It's super healthy. And prevention is one of the best tools that we have available to

Teach Kids To Be A Tree

SPEAKER_00 3:29

us. All right, one of the things I like to teach kids, we used to call it be a tree. Basically, it's pretty simple. All we're asking your child to do is to number one, stop moving. Number two, keep hands close to their body. Number three, look away from the puppy. Number four, stay quiet. And number five, wait for an adult. So children can learn that when a puppy becomes overly excited or jumpy or mouthy, they're going to do these five things. So one, stop moving. Two, keep hands close to your body. Three, look away from the puppy. Four, stay quiet. And five, an adult's going to come help, right? We want to think of this as become very boring. And that might be the easiest way to explain it to your child. Be a tree just means like be a statue, right? Become boring. That might resonate better with your child. So movement makes your puppy excited. And running will create your puppy like a chase game with your puppy. Squealing or making loud, fun noises is going to increase your puppy's arousal. And stillness removes that reward. So here's the important part of this. Adults must still step in and redirect the puppy. So if you see your child becoming a tree, you've got to step in, right? You've got to step in and redirect that puppy's attention because your child's trying to be boring. They're trying to be still. We need to go and step in and help them. That's where that supervision comes in. So your puppy, if they're acting like this, recognize they might need actually more sleep. That's something we don't think about right away. But if your puppy's acting out a lot and they're just reacting, they're not really able to focus or redirect on something more appropriate, then they probably are tired. So more naps. They might need more exercise. If they just got out of their crate or out of their pen, they probably do have a lot of energy. So how can we help that puppy get that energy out, but then also protect your child? Um, we could do some little training exercises, we could play some structured games. Also, we might need to up the management. And I've told my kids before, you can get inside the exercise pen and the puppy can run around the room and get some of that energy out, and you're behind a barrier, and that's okay too. And then keep these interactions short. Usually a child wants to play with the puppy for five, 10 minutes, and then they're like off to the next thing, right? They have very short attention spans, just like our dogs do. So it works out great. The child's job is safety, and your job is to help them be safe, right? So we're going to teach that puppy how to interact appropriately with humans, but they don't yet know that. So we have to use a lot of that management. Now,

Freeze Instead Of Run

SPEAKER_00 5:57

explain to your kids why running away makes things worse. Many kids just naturally run when puppies bite at clothing or ankles. They want to get away from it. I get it. Unfortunately, that often turns the interaction into a chase game. So to a puppy, running feet are super fun and exciting. This is why we coach children to freeze instead of flee. So you can practice this as a family, make it a game. You can say tree, and everyone freezes. Reward your children for remembering the skill before they need it in a real life situation.

Consent Tests And Safe Petting

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Now, teaching consent tests. I love this because this gives your dog a voice. And they're just trying to communicate, right? They're doing what they know how to do, which is be a dog. So one of the biggest advances in dog education over the past several years has been teaching consent-based interactions. And here's what I mean by that. Not every dog wants to be touched all the time. Even friendly dogs deserve a choice in this. So let's teach our children to ask the puppy's body language for permission. Here's how. You can pet your puppy for three seconds. I call it the three-second rule. And then stop and wait and observe. Does the puppy move closer? Do they lean into you? Do they come back for more interaction? Do they nud you? Do they stay relaxed? Those are signs the puppy may want more. So you could pet them for another three seconds. Or if you see your puppy walk away, if they turn their head, if they move behind furniture or they start to focus on something else, then they're saying, no, thank you. I'm good. And that's okay. 100% okay. Teaching children to respect no from a dog is one of the most important safety lessons they'll ever learn. Now, consent tests help children see dogs as living beings with preferences. These are not stuffed animals that exist for human entertainment. All right, let's talk about safe petting zones. Children often want to hug their faces or pat their heads or grab their ears, and most dogs just don't enjoy those interactions. Instead, teach our kids that they can pet the dog on their shoulders, the chest. Many of them like chest scratches. Maybe they like a belly rub, maybe they like the sides of the body. We want to use slow, gentle strokes. Think calm petting, not excited padding, because that excited movement, remember, the faster we move our hands and our feet, the more the puppy wants to bite and chase those things. So if petting is increasing your puppy's excitement, then we want to pause and allow the puppy to settle before continuing. Okay, now here's another rule that I want all kids to know and to memorize is never bother a puppy who is sleeping, eating, chewing a special treat or bone, resting in a crate, hiding or walking away. So in our programs, you'll often hear us say, let sleeping puppies sleep. And children understand that pretty quickly. They understand, okay, it's not time to touch the puppy. So if that puppy's sleeping, eating, chewing something special like a bone, resting in a crate, hiding or walking away, it's off limits. We're not bothering the puppy during those times. Now,

Handling Exercises With Treats

SPEAKER_00 9:01

puppies need to learn that human handling predicts good things. So we can help our puppies enjoy being touched and interacting with our kids by teaching them that this is a safe thing. So this is where handling exercises come in. We want to keep these sessions short, just a few seconds at a time, and we're going to pair handling or touching with treats. So, for example, we can touch our dog's paw and offer a food reward. We can touch their ear and offer a food reward. We can put our fingers just under their collars gently and offer a food reward. Um, with parental supervision, or maybe just the parents want to do this one, but you can, you know, lift their lip up and look at their tooth and offer a food reward. The goal is that we're not restraining our puppy, we're trying to gain some cooperation. So your puppy needs to remain relaxed and comfortable and happy about this. If they start to pull away, then that's valuable feedback. We can slow down, we can use higher value food rewards, we can keep sessions shorter. Remember, we're trying to build trust in your dog, not tolerance. So this handling um bit of advice would be best for an adult to do. But if you have some kids who are older and mature enough to handle this, they can also help you with that. You'll know best how to work that in with your family.

Kids Training Games That Build Bonds

SPEAKER_00 10:15

All right, now teaching kids to participate in training is awesome because the kid is going to learn how to form a relationship and a bond with his puppy, and they're going to have fun together, but in a very structured way. So things that kids can teach your puppy would be sit, down, touch, spin, high-five, shake, place, or go to bed, uh, play find it games. Kids love that. It's basically hide and seek for your dog that you get to hide the toy and they go find it, or hide the treat, and the dog goes and finds it. So we have a lot of games and activities on our games and activities page of our website that you can go to. Your child can pick a game, you can educate your child on how to play the game, they can teach the puppy how to play. And it's a nice uh way to get them to bond and be together, but in a structured environment. So this is also teaching children that earning behaviors is more effective than physically moving a puppy, right? So training is going to help your child learn that I can motivate my puppy to do things without physically touching them. And your puppy's going to like your children much better when there's that mutual respect. So we never want to push a puppy into a sit. We're going to teach our child how to lure them into that sit and then reward the puppy for it. And the kids get excited about that. They're like, watch what I can get my dog to do. And you don't even have to touch them. In fact, I like to make it a challenge for my kids. So I'll say, let's see what you can get the dog to do. And the rule is you can't touch them. And they think that's so fun. That's a good challenge. All

Four House Rules Plus Parent Scripts

SPEAKER_00 11:42

right, when we coach families, we often simplify things into four easy rules. So rule number one is we play with toys, not hands. Rule number two is if teeth touch skin, play pauses. So if you feel your puppy's teeth, play has to pause. Rule number three is if the puppy's too excited, guess what? It's time for a break. They might need a nap or we need some downtime. And rule number four is adults supervise all interactions. Pretty simple, pretty consistent, easy to remember. Now, instead of saying to your child, when your child wants to go and maybe uh pet the puppy or hug the puppy, and you know it's not a good time for that, hugs, especially, I want you to be aware of, are not uh super um good things for dogs. Not all dogs love hugs. It's pretty threatening to them when somebody comes and wraps their arms around them. So teach your child that, hey, let's not hug the puppy, but here's appropriate ways to touch the puppy. So instead of saying, oh, don't do that, try. Hey, I know you love the puppy. Let's show love in the way the puppy enjoys. And then you can show your child how gentle petting or a training game is better than just wrapping their hands around the puppy and squeezing that puppy. So this could redirect your child rather than shame them. And then you'll get some more cooperation. So again, if you see your child just is wanting to go pick that puppy up or give them a hug, instead of saying, hey, don't do that, just say, hey, I know you're trying to love on the puppy. Let's see if we can show your puppy or our puppy love in a way that they actually like. And kids just don't recognize that. That's just something we need to teach them to be aware of, okay? All right, here's another parent script. When the puppy is awake and wild. So if your puppy's up and playing and running around, try saying, the puppy's body is telling us they're too excited right now. Let's help them calm down. This is going to teach observation rather than blame. And the puppy isn't being bad, the puppy's just communicating. All right, here's another parent script. When the puppy walks away. So this is important for your kids to recognize, oh, the puppy's walking away. I want you to say, Looks like the puppy's done playing for now. And that's an important lesson. Your child's learning, they walk away. That means the puppy's done, and I need to leave them alone. Totally fine. So relationships are healthiest when everyone gets to opt out. Now,

Read Stress Signals And Redefine Success

SPEAKER_00 13:54

many people expect dogs to growl or do something like that before they're uncomfortable, but puppies often give us more communication before that. So watch for things like they're walking away, they're licking their lips, maybe they're yawning when they're not necessarily tired. These are stress relievers to your dog. Um, if your dog is freezing, there's like um some tension in their body language, or the whale eye is when they're their head is focused one direction, but their eyes are looking in a different direction. Or if they just move away or try to hide, those are all signals that are your dog's trying to say in the nicest way possible, I need space. Please leave me alone. So when adults respond early, puppies rarely need to escalate their communication to the growling or the snapping, like the air biting. Sometimes you'll see some air biting. They're trying to be nice about it. So we need to listen to them on those from those early warning signs and teach your child how to recognize those as well. So here's what success really looks like. Success isn't a child hugging a puppy while everyone smiles for a photo. Be careful with that. Success is much less flashy. It looks like a child respecting boundaries. It's a puppy that feels safe. It's calm interactions, positive experiences, short, brief experiences is going to keep it more positive. And then we're building trust. So those moments may not go viral online. We might not be able to create that super cute photo that we're hoping for right now. We see them all the time, right? You see the kids hugging, squeezing the dogs. And as a trainer, I often look at those photos and I'm thinking, okay, that's cute, but I'm looking at the puppy and it's clearly stressed. I'm seeing signs in their body language that that puppy is stressed. So make sure that we're educating our children appropriately on how to interact with these puppies safely. So

Junior Training Program And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 15:39

we have, if you're interested, a junior training program. It's a four-week course. We talk to your kids. So it's a class taught on a kid level, and we teach them all of these things and we walk them through things that like tricks they can teach their dog and games they can play with their dog and these body language signals to watch out for. And we give them the challenge to be the detective and figure out what your dog's saying so that they can communicate with them appropriately. So check that out. It's in our classes and courses area. It's included in our membership. If you have kids in your home, I highly recommend having them take that course. All right, thanks for listening, you guys. Hopefully, those a few tips that will help you, your kids, and your puppies be happy and safe and then just thriving in a home together. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. Happy training. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a training tip. And if you're enjoying the show, leaving a quick review really helps other handlers find us. For more training resources, tips, and support, visit me Amy Jensen at baxterambella.com. Until next time, happy training.