As a younger pup we made sure Harley met and was exposed to children from babies all the way to teens but we don't have children in our lives. We don't have friends with young children either. But Harley absolutely LOVES kids. When we are walking and she sees people she gets wiggly, wagging and makes happy lab face but if she spots a child it is 20x more, she gets so silly and cute that she can hardly walk in a straight line. Now she has met lovely children but she has met more (number of) adults. She has different body language for dogs. I am very happy that Harls seems so in love with children but I am just wondering if it is breed thing?
I don't know what to say in reply but I just love your description of Harley seeing children -- Cass is the same. We do have small children in the family who we see 2 or 3 times a year, so I did put time into taking her to places to see that human beings come in tiny packages. My guess is it's a breed thing, after all they take a while to grow up I believe
Quinn loves kids, especially toddlers, and used to get quite excited, but as she has gotten older is a little less interested when a kid asks to pet her when we are out walking and no pulling towards them. She has always been quite good - doesn't jump, never knocked any over and will listen to their commands (sit, wait for them to throw the ball etc). A lot of my friends have small kids and we make the rounds on weekends and Quinn is off with the kids, stealing toys and food from limp toddler hands and running around with them. I think it's one of the reasons labs are so popular as family pets - they like being part of the action.
We have this too - slowly we can cope with children, we can cope with balls, we can deal with children holding balls, we can't cope with running screaming children, especially if they have a ball. After a truly awful moment last summer when Monty slipped his lead and went running happily, tongue lolling alongside a six year old through and around pub tables (thankfully not jumping up or actually touching him) I knew we needed to work on this. Except we don't have kids, or know that many, and my SIL with a 6 year old doesn't care how her son screams and plays with Monty when she looks after him. He has slowly improved, but got annoyed with OH just last week. We were walking back through the park and I saw a kid with a ball walking. Monty's fine at this point, concentrating on us, but I said put Monts on the lead just in case. OH said, why, he's just walking, he's holding the ball. At the moment I said, he's 8, unpredictable and no doubt wants to show off how far he can kick a rugby ball, he kicked the rugby ball high and far and went racing after it. Fortunately no harm done and rugby ball intact, but still something to work on for the future....
Sam is exactly the same, I think is lovely x Sam grew up with my youngest grandson who lives just over the road from us . Sometimes , I take my grandson to school in our small village , heaven for Sam , all those children !
I think Labs like a lot of retrievers tend to be good with kids, as well as adults. They love to play, and they were bred to get along with people and dogs they don't know. They mostly seem to treat little people a little more gently than teenagers and adults.
This is so funny to hear! Brogan didn't mind kids at all but I think he was a bit infected by my own attitude towards them. Which was...um...how shall I put this? I don't dislike them, but never having had kids they are a bit like unpredictable alien entities who need to be watched... carefully. Goodness, when I get my first Lab am I finally going to end up with a dog who not only loves to swim but also dotes on kids? How will I cope?
Oh Xena loves children of all ages, they (along with other dogs) are her kryptonite. 3 times over the past two weeks we've stumbled across a school cross country on our morning walk Fortunately, Xena's got a pretty good heel, so we were able to walk past the hundreds of children in a pretty civilised manner, but she was very excited whilst doing so. She especially loves babies in prams, I've got to keep a close eye on her when we're walking past one of those!
Mollie adores children because she met lots of them when tiny. Tatze is a little more diffident towards them. Our twins (three years old) are coming tomorrow for the day. The dogs don't touch their toys, which is great. But I do worry about the twins getting knocked over .
Snowie is like an old granny on the promenade: always has to look into the prams with babies and toddlers, wagging his tail and with a very happy face. If he's off leash, he goes up to the pram for inspection and a hallo. I know he does adore children, loves their playful energy. But I wonder if his interest in prams has a little to do with tasty morsels in sticky little hands. And yet his face says: How lovely to see a sweet baby! I find it very endearing, and thankfully we've only been met with happy faces - even after the time he stole a piece of bread out of a baby's hand!! The adults thought the baby's response (utter surprise) was hilarious - thank goodness!!! I was so embarrassed and put him on lead immediately.
Homer loves children! He will keep visiting children both big and small entertained for hours. He even taught my little niece that its a humans job to throw the ball for him as soon as she could sit unaided at 9 months old. Train them young and keep them keen in his motto! Always amazes me how gentle he was with her when she was little.
Coco loves children - he had 2 in his original home. He's great when youngsters want to pet him. I'm not ken on the little blighters at all
Harley adores children and is amazing with them. She thinks their job is to throw balls to her (she doesn't care if it only goes 2inches away) and they are there to run alongside her. She is very gentle and luckily never jumped up on a child.
Plum's the same; kids with balls a particular delight. All labs I grew up were the same. I always attributed it to kids being at similar height to the dogs! That seems daft now I've written it down!
W&S are scared by kids. They're too unpredictable, squealy and flappy. Ugh. Luna isn't bothered by them, and will take strokes and give ear licks just as much as she would with an adult, but also doesn't see them as the madly exciting things that some dogs do.
Annie loves children, but Fred is scared of little children (around 4 to 7). One hit him in the face last year and now he does want to go near them.
Vanilla goes absolutely bananas when next doors kid is around. Her eyes light up and her whole body will shake and starts to run around, belly flops included. She never jumps up on her, just sits in front of her trying really hard staying still. Does not work, as her paws move of the ground a couple of cm. Her mum used to look after Vanilla when we got her. Daughter used to come and help, which was a good experience for them both. Other kids out and about she will say hi, but depends on the noise they make. We are lucky in that she won't run up to kids, which gives us chance to make sure that the kid/s and parent/s are OK.
