Best time to get a dog with young kid without waiting forever

[Anonymous]

We got our pup when our kids were 2 and 4. Kids were young enough to be in the stroller or scooter for walks so everyone's energy needs were met. Pup was crate trained from the start and I spent alot of time with training the first six months.

I limited where the pup was allowed and if he wasn't in a crate, he was attached to me. Kids were separated unless supervised. Kids were responsible for keeping their toys off the floor in the dog's area, they did a good job with this even at that age. It was alot of work, but not even slightly near the work of a newborn. The dog was in a small area of the house until he "earned" access to other areas, so that really helped with workload. As he "earned" access, he was attached to me with a leash. So, for example, if he tried to jump on the couch, I was stepping on his leash to prevent it from happening. Mine is a hound mix and extremely food motivated, that made training relatively easy.

Once he was able to do basic commands, like sit, I involved kids in training and would have him eat out of their hands. He has no food aggression or reactivity to be handled or loud noises. That was all important to me and something we worked on from the start, although I think some of that is breed specific and we lucked out.

He loves my kids (especially sitting under them at dinner time) and they love him. He's more expensive than I anticipated though, especially for boarding/travel. He's adds work to the house, it's another thing to take care of. I love him and am the one that pushed for the dog and am really happy we have him, but I don't think we'll get another dog when he dies.

[Anonymous]

Just got a cockapoo from a breeder in Sept (dog now 5 months). I have a 9, 7, 5 and 1 yo. Cockapoo was not my breed choice but went with it based on the breeder's focus on raising family friendly dogs from well tempered parents and tons of gentle socialization before 8 weeks. So i think that is an important factor. My kids could be "the perfect age" but if dog had issues chewing, barking, house accidents, etc we would still have a PITA pet...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just got a cockapoo from a breeder in Sept (dog now 5 months). I have a 9, 7, 5 and 1 yo. Cockapoo was not my breed choice but went with it based on the breeder's focus on raising family friendly dogs from well tempered parents and tons of gentle socialization before 8 weeks. So i think that is an important factor. My kids could be "the perfect age" but if dog had issues chewing, barking, house accidents, etc we would still have a PITA pet...

I may be in the market in a year or so- which breeder did you use?

[Anonymous]

We got a dog a couple months ago with a 7, 5, and 1 year old. It’s been terrific. We got a poodle. We were originally in the market for a cavapoo but then I did a bunch of research, I realized the poodle is the ideal dog. I actually no longer understand why people actually get the mixes / they mix everything with a poodle because they want the benefits of the poodle (no shedding, no drooling, smart, and very healthy breed) but then they dilute all that with the other breed they are mixing with, e.g., King Charles cavaliers are awesome (I grew up with one) but over half of them will have serious cardiac issues which gets passed down to a cavapoo.

Anyway, I digressed on the point of this thread. If you get a dog from a good breeder and the right breed, which in my case has been a moyen poodle, puppies don’t need to be impossible. And she surely isn’t anything like having a newborn as some say - sleeps in the crate 10 hours straight at night. The kids don’t take of the dog’s needs like walking which I already went into this knowing, but they are a huge help with burning off that puppy energy. They adore the dog and spend lots of times chasing it around the house and playing fetch. My oldest is able to also walk the dog right outside the dog for a quick potty break which can be a gigantic help. The puppy is a typical puppy in that she bites everything but she is actually super cautious with the kids compared to adults. She’ll still nip at them to play but she won’t actually hurt them as she unintentionally does to DH and me. With the 1 year old in particular, she is VERY almost intuitively gentle compared to the other, bigger kids. The baby is actually the boss of her which is sort of funny to see. If the dog is jumping to play with the baby, she yells “no” and the dog stops. She also throws toys for the puppy to fetch. The only annoying part about having a 1yo and puppy is she has on a few occasions played with the dog bowls - spilled the water or put the kibble in the water. But after taking an initial taste, she at least hasn’t tried eating the kibble again 😉 oh, and actually the one other temporary downside was my 1yo would try to pick the dog up by the neck which obviously isn’t very safe. After a couple weeks of correcting her on that, she stopped and hasn’t tried doing it in over a month. So it was a short lived and not serious issue since we generally didn’t leave them unsupervised together so could intervene the times it happened.

So all in all, I would get the dog 10/10 times again with these ages. But I’m sure it very much depends on the type of dog you get. I cannot recommend highly enough a poodle - and a moyen in particular as they are the perfect size!

[Anonymous]

Got my dog when daughter was three. In March my daughter turns 20 and my dog turns 17. Some dogs like a long time. My neighbors Shih Tzu made it to 20.

[Anonymous]

We got a puppy with a 2 and 4 year old and it was pretty rough. I'd say 5+.

[Anonymous]

We had a shepherd mix then adopted a 10 mo Labrador teenager in Feb 2012. In July 2012 we adopted a newborn baby girl. The lab is now 10 and she is 9 and they are best friends. There is no “ best time” . He was super rambunctious so she knew as a toddler that we always let him go down the stairs first, we followed after him. That’s really the only thing that was a factor as far as safety goes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any chance you're having another baby? My neighbor told me wait until your youngest is in K and I think that's good advice

Very very minimal chance. Still medically possible if IUD failed, but we are sure we're done.
I could live with waiting til K. I hadn't thought about the toy chewing aspect that one PP mentions.

Def wait until kindergarten or later. 10 sounds about right to me, tbh. Our super sweet golden retriever did great with our 1yo, but the years between 2 and 4 were pure hell. There's the issue with toy chewing, of course, but kids that young really don't understand how to interact with dogs. We took several classes on dog-toddler relations, which you can do at the Humane Society or online, and they all said you simply can't leave a dog of any breed or any temperament alone a child. We thought that advice was a little over the top, but it proved to be true when our dog nipped our child's face. DS very uncharacteristically provoked her and she had a painful medical issue that we had not yet identified and didn't know about. We addressed the pain and medical issues and haven't seen that behavior since, but we also don't ever allow the dog to be near the kids without us being in control of the dog. And frankly, it's exhausting. We had to put up gates all over the house to keep everyone safe and separated. The gates are a total PITA and make the dog feel excluded, which makes her bark and cry. It's hard on everyone. If the dog weren't so old (13), we would rehome her since this really doesn't feel like a nice way for her to live.