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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP. I get it. Bad idea.

But the videos I was talking about are of adults playing with their dogs, tugging on a toy and rolling around, the dog jumping up to lick them, the dog jumping on the bed or into their laps. Things like this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1098646/Adorable-video-dogs-greeting-owners.html

I was not thinking of letting my son do whatever to the dog. I was thinking that the dog also might want something my son has, which is an abundance of physical love. I do not want a dog on top of me or jumping up to greet me. DS would love that. It sounds like this is a dog-specific preference and not a breed-specific preference, so we could end up with a dog which isn't into that kind of play even if we chose carefully.

Fair enough. We'll abandon the dog idea at least until the kids are older.[/quote]

OP, I do know you're trying to do some thing awesome for your son, while maybe levelling the playing field in your house to make his needs less annoying.

The thing is, a dog WILL greet you like the video you posted. They are likely to climb up on the couch to snuggle. But - it's not the full day, all day, every day like your son seems to need. My dog will greet me as though I left to Tahiti for a year even if I've only been in the front yard for 5 minutes. She needs to be in a direct line of sight with me if at all possible. But, she's not very cuddly and hands on most of the time. For your son, a dog like this would likely be confusing as she needs to be Right.There at all times, but doesn't want actual physical contact save for maybe touching me with her toe.

I know you get it, but I posted the Rottie video to illustrate that most dogs are VERY tolerant to what makes them very comfortable, but it's not a good situation for the dog. Their cues are so subtle that if you don't understand them, you can easily miss how unhappy they are. So it's not a matter of your son "doing anything" to the dog - it's the fact that whatever he is doing, that may seem reasonable to you, may not be reasonable to the dog at all, and are an injury boiling just below the surface. Here's another good example, this time from Animal Planet (that they missed). The narrative doesn't talk about all the cues (again, the whale eye is one you can't miss in this) but she does a pretty good job:

https://youtu.be/JxMPCy10-sw

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Just googled dogs' whale eye.  Is this the canine equivalent of the side eye? :D. Couldn't resist.

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