Hi. I would like to adopt a large breed for a family house pet. We have
young children. What breeds are most suitable? I like Rotties,
Bullmastiffs, and Great Danes. Any others to consider?

Yes, we have a fenced yard.

Thanks.

Lisa

In rec.pets.dogs.behavior Lisa Horton wrote:
Hi. I would like to adopt a large breed for a family house pet. We have
young children. What breeds are most suitable? I like Rotties,
Bullmastiffs, and Great Danes. Any others to consider?

Yes, we have a fenced yard.

Thanks.

I would pay more attention to the qualities of the actual dog than the
breed. And start with an adult. Young children often have a very hard
time with puppies. The normal behavior of a puppy is to explore with its
teeth, and the normal reaction of children generally stimulates both
jumping up and puppy nipping. It takes a fairly high level of experience
with dog behavior on the part of both children and adults to obtain the
self conrol needed to avoid making the pupy a frightening experience for
the child. Unless you are a very experienced dog owner your chances of
success will be a lot higher if you start with a mature (at least two
years old) adult dog. That will typicaly result in an interaction that is
less frightening for the children. Adult dogs are more likely to tolerate
child behavior, and less reactive, less nippy than normal puppie.

_Good_ rescue organizations will have a history on the dogs they have
available, and experience with how the dog intereacts with children. In
the breeds you are interesteed in there are plenty of solid good dogs
available in rescue. If you are intersted in exploring other breeds then
a more complete assessment of your preferences will be obtained by
cmbining the questions asked in Daniel Tortora's "The right dog for you"
with the more accurate breed descriptions in Michelle Lowell's book :
"Your Purebred Puppy" or "A Perfect Match" by Chris
Walkowicz. Some good resources on finding and evaluating rescue dogs
include:
Second Hand Dog" by Carol Benjamin
"Choosing a Shelter Dog" by Christiansen
"Adoption Option, Choosing and Raising the Shelter Dog for You." by
Rubenstein and Kalina.

--
Diane Blackman
http://dog-play.com/
http://dogplay.com/Shop/

[posted and mailed]

Mailed because poster set follow-ups to camera groups. If I
give bad advice, I want dog people to tell me so.

Lisa Horton said in rec.pets.dogs.breeds:

I would like to adopt a large breed for a family house pet.
We have young children. What breeds are most suitable? I
like Rotties, Bullmastiffs, and Great Danes.

Wow! You like them large.

Any others to consider?

Newfoundland, co-incidentally the "featured breed" today on
the CKC website: http://www.ckc.ca/

My ex-wife had one before we met and apparently Screech was
wonderful with her young kids. Watch out for Newfie slime!

--
--Matt. Rocky's a Dog.

On 4 Feb 2005 18:00:42 GMT Rocky whittled these words:
[posted and mailed]

Mailed because poster set follow-ups to camera groups. If I
give bad advice, I want dog people to tell me so.

:-) - Good advice - too bad "Lisa Horton" is apparently just trying to
annoy the people in the camera groups. I feel sorry for folks like that -
so lacking in self esteem that they can't do good with their time, they
only have energy to be little annoying gnats. I'd like to convince them
that they could actually feel good about themselves if they did some
good stuff. Oh well.


--
Diane Blackman
http://dog-play.com/
http://dogplay.com/Shop/

Lisa Horton said in rec.pets.dogs.breeds:

Hi. I would like to adopt a large breed for a family house
pet.

FWIW, it looks like such posts are a hobby of Ms Horton.

--
--Matt. Rocky's a Dog.

Diane said in rec.pets.dogs.breeds:

Good advice - too bad "Lisa Horton" is apparently just
trying to annoy the people in the camera groups.

Yup, I just checked out the camera groups. I guess camera
people are just as crazy as dog people.

--
--Matt. Rocky's a Dog.

Rocky wrote:
FWIW, it looks like such posts are a hobby of Ms Horton.

Oops.

Well, that's one good thing about AOL's news server. It only replies to the
group in which it's read. :}

--
Family Dog Trainer
"It's A Dog's Life"
http://hometown.aol.com/dfrntdrums/m...age/index.html
Get Healthy, Build Your Immune System, Lose Weight
http://www.re-vita.net/dfrntdrums

wrote:

In rec.pets.dogs.behavior Lisa Horton wrote:

Hi. I would like to adopt a large breed for a family house pet. We have
young children. What breeds are most suitable? I like Rotties,
Bullmastiffs, and Great Danes. Any others to consider?


Yes, we have a fenced yard.


Thanks.


I would pay more attention to the qualities of the actual dog than the
breed. And start with an adult. Young children often have a very hard
time with puppies. The normal behavior of a puppy is to explore with its
teeth, and the normal reaction of children generally stimulates both
jumping up and puppy nipping. It takes a fairly high level of experience
with dog behavior on the part of both children and adults to obtain the
self conrol needed to avoid making the pupy a frightening experience for
the child. Unless you are a very experienced dog owner your chances of
success will be a lot higher if you start with a mature (at least two
years old) adult dog. That will typicaly result in an interaction that is
less frightening for the children. Adult dogs are more likely to tolerate
child behavior, and less reactive, less nippy than normal puppie.

_Good_ rescue organizations will have a history on the dogs they have
available, and experience with how the dog intereacts with children. In
the breeds you are interesteed in there are plenty of solid good dogs
available in rescue. If you are intersted in exploring other breeds then
a more complete assessment of your preferences will be obtained by
cmbining the questions asked in Daniel Tortora's "The right dog for you"
with the more accurate breed descriptions in Michelle Lowell's book :
"Your Purebred Puppy" or "A Perfect Match" by Chris
Walkowicz. Some good resources on finding and evaluating rescue dogs
include:
Second Hand Dog" by Carol Benjamin
"Choosing a Shelter Dog" by Christiansen
"Adoption Option, Choosing and Raising the Shelter Dog for You." by
Rubenstein and Kalina.


With children in the house, I think you need to be very certain of the
adults upbringing and taining, and for that matter, your ability as a
trainger and how much time you got to put into the animal

On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 10:00:34 +1300, Trog wrote:



With children in the house, I think you need to be very certain of the
adults upbringing and taining, and for that matter, your ability as a
trainger and how much time you got to put into the animal


Obviously I feel that I'm an above average home when it comes to
handling a dog. I;ve adopted 2 adult dogs from a shelter. One was a
found dog - now history at all. The other a surrendered dog, so there
was history, but still minimal. Both were/have been exceptionally
good with children from the first moment. I know how to pick them of
course! But anyone willing to do the research can choose well too.


--
Janet B
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com

wrote in :

:-) - Good advice - too bad "Lisa Horton" is apparently just trying to
annoy the people in the camera groups. I feel sorry for folks like
that - so lacking in self esteem that they can't do good with their
time, they only have energy to be little annoying gnats. I'd like to
convince them that they could actually feel good about themselves if
they did some good stuff. Oh well.

This is leftover stuff from people who are unhappy with the newsgroup
creation policies and cabal (there is no cabal). They're taking a multi-
pronged approach to discrediting the n.a.n. team: widespread vote fraud,
malicious trolling and crossposting, and forgeries attributed to n.a.n.
regulars and admins.

rec.photo's reorganization was one of the early CFVs that went south
because of vote fraud, and some people are still in on it.

Watch out for crossposts to rec.woodworking, too...

--
Kate
and Storm the FCR