Children, Dogs and Education

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.

1.Introduction: Children and Their Lives with Dogs;
Mary Renck Jalongo
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Part One:
Dogs in the Family
.- 2. An Attachment Perspective on the Child-Dog Bond: Interdisciplinary and International Research Findings;
Mary Renck Jalongo
.- 3. Behaviorally Healthy Bonds between Children and Dogs;
Mary Renck Jalongo and Maureen Ross
.- 4. The Family Dog: Influence of Parents on Children s Concepts of Responsible Care;
Kelli-jo Kerry-Moran and William F. Barker
.- 5. Becoming Parent: The Role of Dog as Baby in Learning How to Care;
Jane Bone
.- 6. Children s Ideas about Canine Behavioral Issues and Training Practices;
DeAnna Laverick
.- 7. Loss of a Canine Companion from the Perspectives of Children and Families;
Mary-Ann Sontag Bowman
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Part Two: Dogs as Support for Children s Development and Learning
.- 8. Interactions with Dogs to Support Children s Growth in Literacy;
Jean P. Kirnan and Nina E. Ventresco
.- 9. Visiting Dogs: Animal Assisted Interventions, Education, and Therapy;
Mary Renck Jalongo and Janine Hudock Petro
.- 10. Roles for Dogs in Counseling, Therapy, and Disaster Relief;
Rise VanFleet
.- 11. Service Dogs for Children: Mitigating Physical and Psychological Disabilities;
Mary Renck Jalongo and Lori Breece
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Part Three: Dogs in the Community
.- 12. The Popular Media and Children s Sources of Information about Dogs;
Natalie K. Conrad Barnyak and Jacqueline L. Myers
.- 13. Children s Ability to Interpret Canine Behavioral Cues and Dog Safety Interventions;
Mary Renck Jalongo
.- 14. Dogs are great listeners : A University Course Project to Involve Children in Reading Aloud to Shelter Dogs;
Tunde Szecsi and Melissa Mehan
. 15. The Next Generation of Dog Guardians;
Mary Renck Jalongo, Deborah Linder, Faithe Rotz and Dana Schultz
.- Appendix: Research Project: Child and Parent Perspectives on the Responsible Care of Dogs, Safety Issues with Canines, and Behavioral Problems in Companion Dogs.