The Science Surrounding Children Dogs Part 2 The Bad

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving Julie!

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I’m not exactly sure what that means, as we don’t celebrate it in Australia, but I hope you had a great time with your family and friends all the same!

Thanks for all those fantastic resources you included in your last blog post. It was also great to see some extras posted by readers in the comments section. 

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Last time I looked at ‘The Good’ of some the science surrounding children and dogs. This post, it’s time to cover some of the ‘The Bad’. 

What can possibly be bad about children and dogs? Well, dogs don’t live as long as us, for one.

When dogs die

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Having established last time that dogs can benefit kids’ confidence, self-belief, trust, respect and heaps of other positive attitudes and behaviours, I was left wondering how losing a pet dog impacts children. Loss of a companion animal can be a devastating event for people of any age.

Humans don’t all experience grief equally.

Our understanding of death is linked to our developmental state, but young children can still feel pain at the loss of a family dog. For many children, the death of a pet dog will be their first experience with this kind of loss and grief. Pet dogs can be almost-constant companions for children, and have been assigned a role in reflected appraisal similar to that of a best friend.

Psychologists encourage parents/guardians to explain death to kids sensitively and with honesty. Adults should answer questions simply, using clear and accurate information and avoid the desire to ‘protect’ children from death by hiding the truth of a pet’s illness or euthanasia. This is because children with active imaginations may create scenarios about the death that are far worse than reality. 

Adults should allow children to express their grief (through verbal, artistic or written expression; reading stories about the death of pets, etc.), acknowledging the importance of the relationship lost (rather than trivializing the death or running to buy a new puppy) and helping children to understand that grief is a normal and natural emotion that helps us cope with death.

Sometimes bad can be good

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Some psychologists believe that such trauma (with a successful associated recovery) can strengthen our capacity to deal with future stress and adversity. 

This is referred to as psychological resilience and is considered a desirable and healthy process as it enables a person, or in this case a child, to develop coping strategies and support networks (friends, adults, family, etc.) that will serve them in difficult times later in life.

Your dog is a zoo-

Zoo noses? (source)

Its true (when youre using zo/zoo- as a prefix to indicate animals are involved). And its about noses. Not noses-noses, that would be silly. Im talking about Zoonoses. As in diseases that can transfer from animals to people. As in from a dog to a child. Theyre not pretty. 

Research has shown that people can be generally uninformed about some of the most common zoonotic diseases (e.g. common roundworm eggs readily transfer between dogs and people; the worm larvae can decide to live in the back of childrens eyes which can lead to blindness - people should know that!)

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I suggest that if any of your dog-owning friends with children arent aware of the risks of zoonotic diseases, they run an online search for dogs zoonosis [insert country of residence] so they can read up on what parasite control and other measures can be used in their neck of the globe to reduce the risk of zoonoses. 

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Maintaining good child and dog health and hygiene should be a no-brainer. Did you know dogs can catch things from kids too? Thats called reverse zoonosis. 

And to think sharing is something I normally praise my toddler for!

I hope you’ll grit your teeth and stick with me for my third post about the science surrounding children and dogs. 

You’ve seen The Good and now The Bad – next time, Im going to bring out The Ugly. Ill also touch on what science has to say about our childhood experience with dogs influencing us as adults. 

What do you reckon your childhood experiences with Arf contributed to your adult attitudes?

Take care,

Mia

Further reading:

Gerwolls M.K. & Labott S.M. (1994). Adjustment to the Death of a Companion Animal, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 7 (3) 172-187. DOI: 10.2752/089279394787001826

Serpell J.A. (1981). Childhood Pets and their Influence on Adults Attitudes, Psychological Reports, 49 (2) 651-654. DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1981.49.2.651

Davis J.H. (1987). Preadolescent Self-Concept Development and Pet Ownership, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 1 (2) 90-94. DOI: 10.2752/089279388787058614

Van Houtte B.A. & Jarvis P.A. (1995). The role of pets in preadolescent psychosocial development, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 16 (3) 463-479. DOI: 10.1016/0193-3973(95)90030-6

Bryant B.K. (1990). The Richness of the Child-Pet Relationship: A Consideration of Both Benefits and Costs of Pets to Children, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 3 (4) 253-261. DOI: 10.2752/089279390787057469

Kaufman K.R. & Kaufman N.D. (2006). And Then the Dog Died, Death Studies, 30 (1) 61-76. DOI: 10.1080/07481180500348811

Bonanno G.A. (2004). Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events?, American Psychologist, 59 (1) 20-28. DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20

Bingham G.M., Budke C.M. & Slater M.R. (2010). Knowledge and perceptions of dog-associated zoonoses: Brazos County, Texas, USA, Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 93 (2-3) 211-221. DOI: 10.1016/j.prevetmed.2009.09.019

© Mia Cobb 2012

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