All kids seem to have a natural desire to love pets. As Charles Schulz said, who can resist “a warm puppy”? Puppies, kittens, bunnies, critters, and some birds are small, warm, soft and irresistible. Even ponies fall into this category on a different scale. They’re all cuddly, trusting and innocent, just like babies!

It’s our job as parents to teach children to learn “how” to love and care for pets. Although most pet experts say that the best age for a child to adopt a pet is around age 8, even the smallest child wants to hug and love a pet. It’s the greatest opportunity to teach children the meaning of being gentle. They have to be taught not to squeeze or hurt a pet. We need to give them the experience of hugging and cuddling a pet and make their first introductions to pets positive ones.  With constant supervision we can help small children live with pets, but we can’t expect them to take care of pets until they are school age. Further, we have to teach them how to take care of pets by modeling how to do it ourselves.

This blog is mostly about dogs, but we love all pets and you can adapt these thoughts to other pets. I’ve been overwhelmed in the last 20 years by how smart animals are. I remember the first time I saw one of the Purina teams, who travel around the country putting on shows with animals, demonstrate how to teach cats to walk across tightropes! It’s also amazing the things we can learn about our pets ourselves – and with the internet and television pet shows we have an abundance of resources for learning about our pets.