Kids And Dogs

Teaching Your Child To Respect Their Pup

Jan Wall And Her Beautiful Dogs

When kids and dogs meet it can be a wonderful thing. Not only is this a fun time for both children and dogs, but also a time to teach your child the responsibility that comes with dog ownership.

How To Love Your Dog is a website created by Janet Wall, and is dedicated to helping kids learn how to train and care for their dogs with love and compassion. Janet has a long history of educating children, and training dogs and puppies for obedience trials and therapy companion dogs. Our interview with her demonstrates her affection for dogs, as well as her ability to reach out to children.

A. Thanks, Rich, for this opportunity. I am a retired elementary school teacher. I have a Bachelor of Science degree and a Masters degree in Education and my teaching credential in Special Education. I taught hearing-impaired students for nine years, then learning disabled students, and finally general education for a total of twenty-three years in the public school system.

I’ve had dogs since I was two years old. As a teenager, I studied all I could about dogs, their care, and training. I loved reading books about dogs. As I became older, I joined dog clubs and did some showing at dog shows. As time went on I found I enjoyed training dogs more than anything and I began entering my dogs in obedience trials. I was able to put titles on several of my dogs. Later, I conducted dog obedience classes for children and adults. In the late 1980’s I volunteered as an assistant puppy trainer for Canine Companions for Independence. I became interested in Pet Therapy at that time and have trained all of my dogs since then to be therapy dogs.

My dogs have served in health facilities for severely handicapped children and Alzheimer's patients. We have worked with stroke and brain-injured patients in local hospitals. For six years my dogs worked with children who had cancer. At this time I created my second website, TherapyDogs.Net at http://therapydogs.net. Currently I oversee the screening and orientation of new therapy dogs and their handlers at a local Hospital.

Q. What prompted you in 1985 to combine your two passions, teaching kids and dogs, together to create the Humane Education program that has turned into the website How to Love Your Dog?

A. My collies had accompanied me to school since 1976. They were companions for the kids several times a month. As time went on, I saw changes in the kids as a result of spending time with the dogs. Deaf children became more expressive. Quiet students became more talkative, troubled kids became more open and trusting, and the more aggressive students displayed gentleness.

I decided to create lessons that would teach kids about dogs, encouraging them to spend more time with them, and at the same time help kids learn to be humane by becoming more kind, gentle, respectful, and compassionate. Kids who learn these things naturally extend those feelings to people as well.

After developing some permanent health issues, I took an early retirement from teaching in 1998. But I wanted to continue the lessons that I had found so useful and important for children. So I created my website, How to Love Your Dog at http://loveyourdog.com which is based on that original Humane Education Program that I taught in my classroom. It was very exciting because now I was able to reach many more children than the thirty-one that were in my class.

Q. Your website has so much information about dogs as pets, and so many activities that kids can enjoy! What about the website do kids seem to enjoy the most?

A. Our kids are very excited to learn about their own dog. So they love the breed pages. And if their breed isn’t there, they write and request it. They enjoy posting pictures of their dogs on our Photo Album, as well. Whenever we have a new writing opportunity, like the Read All About It (http://loveyourdog.com/question.html) they write about their experiences with their dogs. We also have a Book Club page where kids read books about dogs and then submit book reports.

Our most popular section is the Tricks page. (http://loveyourdog.com/tricks.html) Currently we have 22 tricks that kids can teach their dogs. Most of them have videos of my dog, Bailey, learning the trick. In this section we also have individual instruction for each trick and another page where children can write in and tell us how they taught their own dog a trick.

All of our training pages are popular. Our page, Teach Your Dog Something Today (http://loveyourdog.com/teachyourdog.html), lets children choose a training goal and then work towards it. Breaking things down helps kids tackle the job and become more successful. Last, children of all ages enjoy the Fact of the Day and the Lesson of the Day where they’re given a small training task to accomplish each day.

Q. What has guided your decisions on the type of information you put on the website? Do the children get in touch with ideas and input?

In most other cases, I have created pages based on my experience with my own dogs, with my students, and from what I know about teaching. Not all issues about dogs need to be learned at young ages. I consider my target audience (8-12 year olds) and their attention spans, their interests, and their ability levels. I also highly consider the parents of our visitors and what their expectations are about online experiences for their children.

Q. How did you come up with the “I Love My Dog Contract” (http://loveyourdog.com/contract.html)? How do the children you teach respond to this contract?

A. As a teacher I know that students perform better if a goal or behavior is identified for them. The contract is merely a set of goals that I created keeping the age of the students in mind. Each items of the contract are things dogs need to be healthy, happy, and safe. They are goals that the kids can take on themselves and accomplish. Kids feel pride when they make promises and keep them.

Q. When it comes to kids and dogs, what is the best advice you would give children who are interested in taking care of their own dog?

A. When I visit schools with my dogs, I talk to students about being kind, gentle, and generous. I emphasize patience and respect. I spend time discussing privacy; the concept that dogs need quiet time alone just like we do.

Beyond that, I think it helps children to develop empathy for their pets. Knowing that dogs get hungry, thirsty, and tired just like we do helps them to understand what the dog’s needs are. They also feel fear and pain as we do and understanding that gives children the ability to better care for their dogs.

I often get mail from kids who want dogs and they don’t know what to do because their parents don’t think they are ready for a dog. So I steer them to our Responsibility page (http://loveyourdog.com/responsibility.html) where I explain what responsibility is and how they can prove to their parents they have become a person who can handle a pet. I give the children eight assignments over a long period of time that will help them prove they are dependable, reliable, trustworthy, and honest. These tasks will help them show their parents that they think for themselves about things that need to be done, and then do them.

Q. Your website offers a lot of information related to kids and dogs training and teaching obedience to their pups. What are a few training tips you give children who are struggling with taking care of their own dogs?
A. It’s important for kids to relate to their dog on an empathetic level. I believe it’s important that kids recognize how much we have in common with dogs. We have many needs that are similar. If kids can learn and focus on a few concepts like respect, kindness, compassion, and gentleness when they’re training it will go a long way to giving them the patience that is needed for long term pet ownership.

1. Training should only be five to ten minutes a couple of times a day. The session should always end on a happy note. If a child is getting upset with their dog, they should stop the lesson and resume later, after they feel better.

2. Always have a little playtime after training.

3. If a puppy or dog is acting silly, nipping, or jumping up during training, the session should stop and the child should walk away until another time.

4. Be positive with the dog whenever possible. Talk to him and say good things to him. Focus on the things the dog does right. Find opportunities for the dog to be successful.

5. Give the dog lots of exercise. It helps the dog to be healthy and tires him out so that he is better behaved.

6. Be the leader. The dog will look to the leader for direction and guidance. Without a leader, the dog will learn to lead himself, and for a pet, that’s not a good idea.

Q. How do you think a dog can help a child learn to be more responsible, compassionate, and caring?

A. The benefit of children learning about dogs goes beyond the care and training of dogs. Lessons on respect, responsibility, love, and compassion toward animals transfer to all areas of a child's life. Kids who learn and practice being kind, gentle, and generous with dogs naturally extend those feelings to people as well. I have seen this in the classroom over and over again.

Just as a new mother is rewarded for her love by a newborn baby cooing and smiling, so too, is a child whose dog licks their face, snuggles in their lap, or learns a trick. When a child teaches the dog a command or trick, and the dog learns it, that child realizes that he has leadership skills and the ability to teach and influence another being.

A child who pets and comforts a sick dog learns that he can also comfort a friend or family member and get the same good feeling. Having a dog depend on a child helps them learn responsibility, especially if directed by an adult.

Q. You also have experience working as a puppy trainer and volunteering to work with therapy dogs. What lead you to decide to work in these avenues with dogs, and what do you find most rewarding about the experiences?

A. I love training puppies, so I enjoyed volunteering as an assistant with Canine Companions because I learned so much from the experience. About that time (1989), I read an article about therapy dogs and thought that would be a fun and rewarding experience. I was attending a support group for Alzheimer’s patients that year and they asked if I would bring my collie to visit the patients in the daycare facility. I continued there for six years! I knew that I wanted to continue this because it was rewarding for me, and extremely helpful for the patients. It brightened their lives, stimulated their memories, and gave them a different kind of joy they had lost.

On a personal note, having a well-trained dog and being able to take him out in public, is fun for me. I like the attention that my dog gets and I enjoy talking to people about dogs, training, and programs available to them.

Dog Names Home

Return To Dog Experts Interviewed From Kids And Dogs