Dog and baby - scary

I've realised that I actually know nothing about dog behaviour and body language. Now that I have two small children and live on the edge of a park where there are regularly loose dogs, I think I need to learn.
Can anyone recommend any good resources? Perhaps on understanding dog behaviour in different situations.
 
I didn't turn on the sound but simply the BL was enough to make me wonder what on earth the owner was thinking! Regardless of the fact that the baby was in the middle of all that, why would anyone with any sense allow the dog to 'guard' something from the owner? Bull breeds will guard, given half a chance - a sensible owner won't give them any chance at all
 
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With the number of dogs now in UK households and the increasing number of serious dog attacks on children I really think there needs to be some sort of public safety campaign; it is terrifying how many owners completely misread their own dog's behaviour and/or goad or encourage it to behave in an antisocial way. There is apparently a craze on TikTok where people video themselves/someone else frightening their dog for laughs; it can hardly be a surprise when dogs owned by people like that become aggressive.
 
Art Nouveau said:
I've realised that I actually know nothing about dog behaviour and body language. Now that I have two small children and live on the edge of a park where there are regularly loose dogs, I think I need to learn.
Can anyone recommend any good resources? Perhaps on understanding dog behaviour in different situations.
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This is a really good starting place. dogminded on instagram also posts about it a fair bit, and has a list of book recommendations here.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Well there are at least 34.8k idiots out there!
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There are more and more educational videos in my social media feeds around dog behaviour/communication but people just absolutely refuse to be told, even at the extremes like in this video and it is utterly terrifying. Including people making fun of health visitors being cautious about dogs, well with stupid things like this and so many recent stories of young children being seriously injured or killed by dogs it's no flipping wonder!
 
Regardless of body language or resource guarding or anything else, to me it makes no sense to put a baby that small in that situation- the baby is so young and fragile, the dog could have easily suffocated it!

I mean, the guarding behaviour etc is super concerning and not at all loving, but honestly the video scared me most because I thought the dog was going to lie on top of the baby, and regardless of reason, that could be hugely dangerous.

Why on earth would someone allow that situation to happen in the first place with such a small baby?
 
I do not, have not and never will understand the obsession with forcing dogs and children together. Videos like this and similar photos, I’ve just never understood. I’m not really sure why.

I was born into a house full of dogs, and I would describe us as ‘co-existing’ until I was about seven.

They weren’t forced on me, and I wasn’t forced on them.
Some liked me, some did not.
I wasn’t left unsupervised with them and tbh from photos, home videos and memories - I genuinely don’t remember them having much to do with me until I was of an age where I wanted to play with them/was interesting/wasnt too annoying.

I just don’t understand. Mum, the biggest dog lover, openly says she let the dogs have a sniff of me as a baby through a travel cot and that was that. They stayed in their lane. One had a strong aversion to me and, I would imagine, displayed behaviours like that video - she went to live with friends as my parents felt there would come a point where the dogs and I would engage more, and then this particular dog would have probably taken a chunk out of me. The others were fine but again, I really don’t remember this unfiltered access that I always see online. Ditto with my grandparents rough collies.
 
That video is extremely worrying. I sincerely hope that there are dog-savvy Health Visitors in whatever country that video originated from.
When I was little, we had a wire haired fox terrier who guarded his bed in the kitchen with ferocity. If we went too near, he growled murderously and we got shouted at. Other than that, he was the perfect children's pet.
I think, rather than bringing back dog licences, we should bring in owner licences, and compulsory Good Citizen Dog/Owner training. Rant over - for now.
 
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