Toddler and Dog
Hello! My 1.5 year old thinks it’s funny to grab my dogs skin and pull it despite me moving his hands away, saying “nice hands”, demonstrating what nice hands are when petting a dog, and showing that it is not okay to do that. Whenever I move his hands away and tell him that’s not okay (obviously showing my facial expressions that I’m not happy with that action) he thinks it’s funny and continues to do it. Luckily my dog is patient and tolerates it but I know that could change at any time. How can I correct his behavior with animals?
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I agree. Keep them apart until he is old enough to understand. It's not fair to either one of them to keep putting them in that situation
Immediate physical separation when it does occur. Not just hands moving away, our entire bodies. We’d only give a dog one opportunity to be rough with a child, why should we give children multiple opportunities to be rough with a dog? Explain that it is not a game, that dogs are beings with feelings, and beings with sharp teeth. If you don’t respect their space & feelings, you might get hurt.
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You’re going to need to keep them apart if he can’t stop annoying the dog because one day that dog is going to snap. I was that age when my dog bit me on the face because I was pulling his tail, not worth the risk in my opinion!