This book brings together authoritative information about the child dog bond as it is
manifested with family dogs visiting therapy dogs and service dogs trained to assist children
with disabilities. Despite the widely accepted view that participating in a dog¿s care and
interacting with dogs in behaviorally healthy ways is a route to becoming responsible and
compassionate research on this complex dynamic is difficult to design time-consuming to
collect and challenging to analyze. This volume synthesizes theory research and practice
bringing all to bear upon child dog interactions in homes schools libraries and the
community at large. Children Dogs and Education serves as a handbook for a diverse group of
adults who seek to build positive relationships between children and dogs¿parents families
professional dog trainers teachers librarians mental health professionals health care
professionals and university faculty. The study of interactions between human and nonhuman
animals has captured the imagination of an international community of researchers from many
different fields and professions. Even though dogs are ubiquitous in the lives of most children
studies of children¿s interactions with dogs in families and communities are lacking. Most of
the previous research on the human-canine bond has focused on adolescents and adults or even
when younger children are the focus it has tended to rely on parents to speak for children.
There are three features of this book that make it unique. First it goes beyond exploring the
child dog bond to examine additional important issues including: children¿s concepts of
responsible care their ability to interpret dogs¿ behavioral cues and their ideas about
canine behavioral issues training. Second unlike most other work to date it represents
children¿s voices through cases interviews and drawings. Finally the contributors to this
edited work use their collective wisdom to draw educational implications and suggest direction
in preparing the next generation of dog guardians.
