How are Caucasian Shepherds around children?
The beautiful titan dogs, the Caucasian Shepherds are great to have as family dogs, so a good question before deciding to get one is “how do they behave around children?”. The answer depends on a few important points that are essential in any dog owner’s manual. These beautiful giants can be best friends and guardians for children as long as they receive the attention and training they need. Taking responsibility on the type of dog that you get and buying a pure breed one that ensures proper behavior is a good starting point. Afterwards, there are a few more things that need to be considered before deciding to bring such a special large breed new member to your family, especially if there are children around.
1. Experience with dogs and proper training
If you are a first time dog-owner and you want to get a Caucasian Shepherd, then you should spend some quality time for learning how to behave and understand a dog’s body language so that you are able to put aside all possible fears and reactions that come from an unknown area. Dogs are instinctual animals and Caucasian Shepherds are over-protective dogs for their owners and property, so they will take care of their pack or family as a natural thing. It is crucial that the Caucasian puppy receives proper training from an early age, so that you don’t risk having an uncontrollable huge dog running around and protecting your house from every person who comes to visit.
2. Size matters
An obvious thing for dogs of large breeds is that size matters when you have small children around the house. So, a fluffy Caucasian is also a big Caucasian that will run around and possibly knock down a child just as any other playful large dog. It is important that the child knows their manner of playing and is aware of the fact that they can tumble down in the presence of the playful dog.
Regarding the children, it seems also in their case that “size” or better said age matters. A guard dog will not consider a pre-pubescent child running around as a threat for its household, so there is no need to worry about neighboring children. Once a child reaches puberty, the hormonal input changes and the dog will start considering him an adult, so it is best to introduce to the dog any visiting teenager or adult personally by a family member. We recommend you watch this video about how to properly introduce children to dogs.
3. Socializing is crucial
As these beautiful titans aren’t the best suited for being apartment dogs, it is important for them to have a wide outdoor space to explore and guard. However, leaving them out in the yard and not exposing them to enough social interaction would be also a very detrimental thing. It is ideal to alternate between quality time with the dog both indoors and outdoors, introducing him to new people in different situations around the house. This way, your Caucasian buddy will have plenty of experience around people and not only as a loner backyard guard dog, making it thus much friendlier with children also. You can read more about the steps in socializing with the Caucasian Mountain dog here.
One beautiful example of such a dog-child friendship from our Titans Family kennel is Mushu, son of Portos and Hilda, who left for a family in Constanta in 2015. The family daughter, 7-year-old Sara, fell in love with the fluffy Caucasian from the first moment and they developed a very close relationship, even sleeping together for a while, until Mushu became too large to stay in bed. They became friends, play buddies and created one of those special animal-human bonds that are beyond explanation. You can see in the pictures the beauty of their interaction.
To conclude, Caucasian shepherds can be great friends for children if they have the proper training and attention since they are puppies. The dog owners have to be considerate of the dog’s size, protective temperament and needs of socialization for the best interaction as possible with the family children.
What is your experience with Caucasian Shepherds and children? We would love to hear from your stories!
