Your pet and your toddler: How to keep them both safe from each other
THERE are many benefits to owning a pet. Experts say pets can help manage loneliness and depression by giving us companionship, they can decrease blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and triglyceride levels, and they help with socialisation. So many families own at least one pet — mostly dogs and cats — but even some exotics like snakes and gerbils. But what happens when your pets and your toddler collide?
Many times your pets are part of your life before children enter the picture, and when they come, you have to make plans to ensure that they both can co-exist. When the child is an infant this may be easy, but when the toddler years hit and your rambunctious toddler gets into sparring with your energetic puppy, it becomes harder.
How do you keep your toddler and your furry friend both safe from each other? Here are some tips from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
1. Teach children how to interact with animals. Pets can teach children compassion and responsibility. However, children five years of age and younger should be supervised while interacting with animals to ensure the safety of the child and the pet.
2. Teach children to wash their hands right after playing with animals or anything in the animals’ environment (cages, beds, food or water dishes). Don’t let children kiss pets or put their hands or other objects in their mouths after handling animals. Infants and children are more likely to get sick from germs that animals can carry. This is because young children often touch surfaces that may be contaminated with animal faeces, and they like to put their hands in their mouths. Objects like pacifiers may fall on dirty surfaces and then be placed in an infant’s mouth. Young children are less likely to wash their hands well.
3. Parents must oversee the pet’s care even if they believe their child is old enough to care for a pet. If children become lax in caring for a pet, parents may have to take over the responsibility on their own. Children should be reminded in a gentle, not scolding way, that animals, like people, need food, water, and exercise.
4. Since very young children do not have the maturity to control their aggressive and angry impulses, they should be monitored with pets at all times.
5. Note that pet rodents (such as mice, rats, hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs) and other small pets (such as chinchillas and ferrets) can sometimes carry germs that can make people sick. Small pets can carry germs even if they look healthy and clean. Germs are shed in their droppings and can easily contaminate their bodies, habitats, toys, bedding, and anything in areas where they live.
6. Teach kids how to play safely and not to kiss, snuggle, or hold small pets close to their faces. Teach them not to kiss pets or let them lick their faces, and take care to avoid bites and scratches. Keep children away from animals while they are eating to prevent the risk of bites or other injuries.
7. Teach the child, as best as you can, that the animals have feelings and will hurt if there is roughhousing. Teach them not to pull tails, fur, pinch, bite poke or hit the animals, no matter how docile they are.
8. If you realise that your pet is unhappy, fearful or becomes aggressive around your toddler, you have to take steps to fix this. This may require some pet training, or even removing the animal from the house for a while until things improve.
