Youngest DC is 18 months... is this too young to introduce a dog/puppy to the family?

[Monkley]

Sorry me again! Our youngest DC is only 18 months, is this a bit too young for us to get a puppy/dog? I know nothing about it but would imagine it would be nice for them to 'grow up' together, but then again I don't want a dog to nip him if he pulls his tail or something........

[Onlyaphase]

I would say it is too soon, sorry. Children that young don't have empathy and can't read the signals for when the dog has had enough, so you would need to be constantly supervising, distracting and moving the dog/children apart.

[Midori1999]

I agree witht he above. A toddler and a dog will be a nightmare. It will be much better to wait until your child is old enough to understand when you tell them not to do something. (eg, leave the dog alone)

[dawningrealisation]

Please wait. I got mine when DD was just 2. It's been very hard. I wouldn't recommend it (and I've been extremely lucky with the loveliness of the dog!).

[Monkley]

Thanks guys, dawningrealisation what has been the main difficulties? I think we will wait, maybe next Summer would be a better time...

[Onlyaphase]

Main difficulties that I can see are

• housetraining a puppy when trying to supervise small children. You need to keep an eye on the puppy all the time to see when it might need to go out, and spend time each time it is outside following it round and praising it for having a wee. And there will be a fair amount of clearing up inside too. If you don't have time to do this focussing on the dog not your children it will take ages to housetrain the poor dog and you will have mess everywhere
  

- walking a puppy or dog when you have small children is a nightmare as you don't have enough hands or time to entertain bored wet children and pick up dogshit at the same time, every day, once or twice a day, in rain and in the dark.

- training any puppy to behave correctly around the house eg not begging for food, not jumping up, not eating your furniture etc needs constant work at first, 100% supervision and consistency from everyone around. It is unlikely any small child, let alone a toddler, will be capable of following these rules and not teasing the dog.

Really, unless you currently sit around being bored and with lots of spare time every day, then it might not be the best time to get a dog. I'm a SAHM, with a DD at primary school, and I have two older dogs, and even I don't think I have the necessary commitment to get another dog at the moment. They are hard work, especially at first.

[SpaghettiTwirlerAndProud]

We got our greyhound at the end of January, when DD was just 7.5mo, she's now 10.5mo and crawling like lightening, she mainly ignores the dog unless she is sat on our laps and he comes up for a fuss, she is then allowed to stroke him a little bit with one of us holding her hand. She is mainly interested in his collar tbh, it's blue with brown spots :o

[labradoodleandproud]

I would wait until dc is 4 or 5 and can understand about leaving the dog alone.

[SpaghettiTwirlerAndProud]

Oh should mention that he had already lived with young children (he's a returned dog) one of whom was ASD, so he's well used to littlies.