You own a pet and you have a kid

We have all watched the cute little videos with dogs and cats and the kids in the house. I am guilty of "Awww how cute is that"? responses to many of them. I think many of you will say that having kids and pets together create bonds that last a lifetime. That being around the dogs or cats helps build immune systems for the kids. If they can absorb germs from the pets then they can deal with the daily germs from elsewhere. All of that may be true, but sometimes in these videos, I witness behavior from the parents that borders on the insane and straddles the line of abuse.

If the department of children's services in any city or country wanted too, they could build a case against many for abusive behavior, just from watching videos. Evidence hand wrapped. There is nothing sanitary about pets. Sure, they may look clean and you may even wash them, but come on, sanitary they are not.

They lick places that are disgusting. They drool everywhere. They attract fleas and mites. Is letting your child play with the pet toys and putting them in their mouth a smart thing? Should kids be crawling around on the floor where the litter box sits? Does it make sense to let a dog that outweighs the kid sleep in the same bed or let the pet lick the kids face?

Are we supposed to believe that pets know better when they are provoked? There are innocent animals that may seem harmless, but it only takes one instance for there to be a serious problem. Cats scratch eyes out. Dogs can take a chunk of skin. Limbs can be severely injured and even in some cases a death can be caused.

Oh I know, the amount of instances where these things happening are documented to be infrequent occurrences, but they do happen more than I care to want. I raised my kid with 7 cats in the house, but they were all declawed on their front paws and I never let them sleep in his bed until he was of an age that was appropriate. After he was 5 years old.

He was never exposed to the litter box as an infant or even as a young child, but that did not mean he was not at risk for germs. I made every effort to make sure that was the case. They were bathed regularly and treated for insects daily. There was an instance one day where we went to the park for a playtime at the swings. When we were walking back a Rotweiler that was the half my size and 2 times the size of my kid came running across the field and attacked us, unprovoked.

The owner of the dog had been training it in our playground without any regard for the safety of the kids there. The dog terrified my kid and in a moments notice I kicked that dog square in its jaw and sent it reeling. The owner of the dog started yelling at me. I told him if I ever see him or his stupid dog anywhere near the park it was going to end very badly for him. My kid was traumatized and for years after, if he even saw a dog close to that, he would start trembling and need to be consoled to calm down.

I guess the point I am making is that pets are unpredictable and anyone that has young children should exercise extreme caution when indoctrinating said pets into the life a kid. Making silly videos for entertainment could bite you where you least expect it. Aside from the disgusting rituals that seem to exist, like sharing food and licking faces and sleeping together, they are animals with no idea what is proper. Just because it doesn't get reported or it doesn't seem to happen very often, they do injure children daily and one instance is enough.

They have protected and even saved kids before from intruders and I know that, but risk are involved, especially when it comes to certain breeds, is it worth it?

Sounds like a rant in the wrong place.

Did the dog run up and bite you?

From what you are saying "The dog terrified my kid and in a moments notice I kicked that dog square in its jaw and sent it reeling."

It sounds like it scared you and you kicked it in the jaw.

Not cool

Added,

I would go toe to toe with my dog and any kid on the bacteria culture challenge.

When kids aren't bringing playground spawned, meth parent incubated, super viruses that will drop you for a month, they are sneezing, puking, pooping on everything, then touching everything they missed.

a reply to: searcherfortruth

Soujds like you lack experience in both children, pets and people....

A dog or dogs can kill deer, boar, lions.

A cat can kill a creature three times its body weight.... so children.

Humans are vile and disgusting. I put my mouth places i wont tell you for fear of reprecussion from the mods.

You need to go have a smoke, or a beer and rethink your outlook on life friend..

We are the dirtiest race of mammals on this planet by far...

This thread reminded me of Kitty Kitty. He was my parents' cat when I was born. He was my friend, he bit or clawed me a few times but I was sad when he died. I had one other cat that I adopted against my parents will and left with them when I went to college. but I'm allergic so my cat owning days are over.

a reply to: flyingdutchman2112

Next time try gravel..l if makes a great pet for people who want to cast it aside.

Ringo the cat had a good life. He went indoors and outdoors to play in the fields and woods of northern michigan but still ate a good amount of cat food, he was enjoyed by my parents and brothers for the most part. don'ta reply to: Aeshma

That is a whole lot of paranoia wrapped up into one post. With the title - i got excited you were going to call out those who claim owning a pet is on the same level as having a child. It is not, and I would agree if that were the point you were arguing.

But instead it is this. Im no fan of stupid videos or sleeping with a dog but whining about 'exposure to litter' and all? Settle down. Take a chill pill! Any trip to the grocery store is surely more an exposure to anyone than a pet.

First of all you are so far off it isn't even funny. As a psychologist (with degree, even though my own basic studies mean more to me than that), I can say that your one bad experience with a dog that you legally abused and the impact it had on your child has caused a ridiculous psychological impact that has somehow, over time, caused the ridiculousness of this post.

First of all, which another commentator already said, humans are absolutely disgusting. Specifically, you speak of dogs licking weird places then licking children. Did you know that human beings' mouths are absolutely disgusting. The fact that one would kiss their child is amazing. While dogs' mouths are not necessarily cleaner than humans, they are similar in disgust and both mouths should be avoided when it comes to children. Below are basic sources:

scienceline.org...

www.pacificsciencecenter.org...

Secondly, YouTube videos are not an example of great parenting. By that, I mean that any dangerous or unknown animal should never be present around children. Pets, (dogs are specifically what I am speaking of here as it is my area of knowledge) are like children (or at least they should be). If you raise a dog, and have raised/taught it well then you know what it is capable of and what its personality is like. Breed does NOT determine personality of dog. If you have an uncle that hates children, a good person would keep the child away from him. The truth is the same of dogs. If they have a personality that should be kept away from children, then the appropriate actions should be taken. Pets (again specifically dogs which I know about) are extremely beneficial to children. Not only do they add to family, they actually continually benefit the child's learning curve. Below are examples (and do not mock the Oprah site article, her references are backed in scientific journals if you take the time to investigate).

www.oprah.com...

www.petcentric.com...

Third, defending your children to a reasonable degree is great. However you have made two very unintelligent mistakes that completely shred any type of "intelligence" you claim in your argument. First, kicking an animal that caused no direct threat to your children (to the point where you claim to be boasting that it was "reeling") is digusting. Teaching your children that this is an appropriate defense to any unintelligible type of threat (even though I debate if there was any) is a serious psychological issue. It's the same reason we intelligent and decent human beings don't strike our children anymore. Defense is one thing, and if the dog were jumping at your children, teeth beared, then a kick would be an appropriate response. However, you're poor kids being afraid is a part of life. You've officially taught them (at a young age mind-you where single event imprints cause such an impact to a child's psyche) that violence is acceptable at any time their precious minds feel the least bit threatened. Congratulations

Lastly, the rest of your argument is ridiculous. No human being should touch a litter box (which should be in a secure place in the home) without proper protection. Any child that is under a decent parents supervision should never be licking or playing with an animals toy (let alone be allowed or unobserved to the point it's in their mouths). As a parent it is your responsibility to be aware of all of this.

Also, declawing cats is considered animal abuse (worse than kicking a poor dog) as evidenced below. Basically, if you are unsure of your reproductive future, study and/or wait on pets. If you have them, remember that they are alive and rely on us like children. My personal decree is that if you can't knowledgeablely and psychologically take care of a pet, you are 100% UNFIT to be a parent and will cause damage to your children.

m.humanesociety.org...

As an extra, if you have a pet you can barely take care of then "become" pregnant, there's a problem far beyond pet vids on YouTube. Sentient pets (all of them but especially dogs, cats, etc) have an intelligent co-dependant relationship that is developed upon the fact that they are always childlike while depending on us humans to be more evolved to live with them. Unfortunately there are too many Neanderthals claiming to be humans and it ruins everything. Any life within your care is important and if you "accidentally become pregnant" then that should teach you about what will happen when another conscious life is under your care. It should not make you stupider and more one sided. Google can be used for more than fun kid videos and porn, it can lead us real humans to true research we can interpret if used properly.

I mean no disrespect to anyone under the generalities I have brought up, however I stand 100% behind the facts and ethics of my post.

originally posted by: searcherfortruth
My kid was traumatized and for years after,

It sounds like you were the one who was traumatised. How much of your negativity has rubbed off on your son and he is merely replicating your behaviour? Your aggressiveness towards the dog may have created aggressive behaviour in the dog.

People have good and bad experiences in life. I nearly got run over by a car but I don't want all cars crushed, nor do I really care anymore. Besides, it was not the car, it was the driver: Same with dogs because often if the dog is poorly trained and socialised it will may act unsociably.

I´m specifically talking about dogs now. You have to teach your children how to read a dog and act around a dogs. Dogs are group animals and they all share similar behaviors. I can understand if someone had a bad experience with dogs and can´t stand them, but in most cases, it´s not the dogs fault but the humans. They can´t speak to us, they use sign/body language and it´s really not hard to read if you know what to look for. I had a belgian sheepherd (malinois), fully trained to Sch3, yet, she never did any harm to anyone.

One thing she didn´t let me do was wrap both arms around her (for example while "fighting" at the ground with her). She would then growl and then I know she dislikes it and stop it. Afterwards she would always pacify me with her behavior (pacifying is a thing in dog world) and I know she was just like "hey all good, just showed you the border".

I´m not saying you should have waited for the dog to actually attack. I´m saying you need to learn how to face dogs, they are a part of our society. You can stomp every dog that dashes towards you but one day, you´ll get bitten because of that. Don´t get me wrong, it´s the fault of the owner who was not able to raise the dog in a pack like environment. None of my dogs ever jumped at someone and there is a reason for this, they were socialized towards other beings.

I often see dogs walking their humans. That´s the case when the human was not able to be the alpha and so it´s natural the dog has less respect and won´t listen. What I´m going to say now, will probably used against me but dogs fight their way into the ranks. I´m not saying you have to hit your dog but you absolutely HAVE TO show it who´s alpha. Then you get a dog that will listen to your commands and approach other beings in a more calm way, not dashing towards them. Two dogs that were raised by a human without knowledge will always display lack of propper communication and that´s ALWAYS the reason when something bad happens with other beings. You can estimate the way someone is, by looking at his/her dog(s). Not the breed but how it behaves.

Sounds like you do NOT need a dog "Pet"...
The child is debatable....

a reply to: searcherfortruth

So basically because your kid got scared, you abused someone else's dog?

Was the aggressive or just exuberant? We took our kid to a pet store when he was three. He had grown up around cats (ours are not declawed, except for the one we adopted who was that way) so he was not used to dogs. An eager and overly excited dog jumped on him in greeting and knocked him down. Scared him. It was not the dog's fault or our son's. I most certainly DID NOT kick the dog in the jaw. No one was hurt, and it still took us a year to unravel that fear.

Your response might have created and even deeper fear of dogs than a simple scare from the dog alone. Why? Because you reacted out of fear driving home the lesson that dogs are horrible scary monsters to be feared at all costs. The dog may not remember that, but your child sure will.

For sure kids and animals need careful supervision, but it is also a good way to teach your kids how to respect another living being too. You know, that other living beings feel pain and fear and hurt like we do. I'm sure seeing you kick the dog in the face was an excellent way to communicate that.

a reply to: searcherfortruth

Pets expose children to a host of elements that will boost and build the child's immune system.

They teach responsibility, caring, compassion.

I could never imagine a home without pets.

But to each their own.

a reply to: DBCowboy

Right, studies on children in india shows why their immune system is so good compared to first world nation children. Aside of the obvious answer(early exposure to bacteria), it was tape worms. There are different types and if you catch the right one, it can help boosting the immune system and help you digesting and breaking down toxics (like from spoiled food). At least that´s what the studie said, I´m sorry I don´t have a link, I saw this on some documentation channel (NatGeo or History). Take it with a grain of salt.

Update / Correction:
Good that I wrote that grain of salt line.
It´s not a tape worm, it´s a "whipworm". After a member asked me if it could be a heliobacter type I´m talking about, I looked a bit on google and found out it must have been Trichuris trichiura. The article says Thailand, not India (!) but I think I just gobbled that up because a part of the documentation was about India.
www.npr.org...
Take it with a grain of salt.

originally posted by: searcherfortruth
When we were walking back a Rotweiler that was the half my size and 2 times the size of my kid came running across the field and attacked us, unprovoked.

Define 'attacked'.

a reply to: searcherfortruth


The more important thing here is the dog was charging her and her child. It should have been on a leash,most playgrounds and just towns/cities in general have leash laws.

Sounds like she stopped it from charging because the dog owner clearly had lost control of his dog. I have been attacked by a German Shepard as a child - it grabbed me by the throat. Had my mother waited for the dog to stop charging me it might have been too late.

The videos of Bull Mastiffs and pit bulls with babies is just pure stupidity imo.

originally posted by: Mandroid7

I would go toe to toe with my dog and any kid on the bacteria culture challenge.

When kids aren't bringing playground spawned, meth parent incubated, super viruses that will drop you for a month, they are sneezing, puking, pooping on everything, then touching everything they missed.

And putting those random things in their mouths. Don't forget that part. Snails, rocks, detergent, and anything else that catches their eyes will go directly from hand to mouth if you're not quick enough to tell them "No!!".

Children are walking bio-hazards, keep your snot nosed children away from me.

That is all.

a reply to: KTemplar

OP said the owner was training the dog. In that case, some loss of control is to be expected. However, most people who are training their dogs in the park are not training vicious animals. Anyone with half a brain knows better than to take an animal with chancy temperament into a situation where it could get loose and put both itself and the owner and others at risk.

But you cannot expect your dog to learn how to control itself in park situations if you never take it to the park and socialize/train it there where it is exposed to all the distractions that come with it.

That being said, some people are morons and will do the stupid thing, but most aren't going to.

a reply to: ketsuko


Leash laws - that is all