the right dog for my son?

Question
hi and thank you for taking my email. i have a 16 month old son and he loves (woof!)dogs. he says all the time "dada love woof". so my wife and i want to get a dog one thats older so we dont have to train as much and one thats great with him. do you have any ideas of the right breed for us? we would like a smaller inside mostley dog.
please email me at joeegurney@hotmail.com thank joe

Answer
Hi joe.
i have always had indoor dogs.
It simply I not safe to leave them outside.
Bad weather is bad for them and miserable, and you have to worry about freaks stealing them, and so much else.
also, when you have a dog outside, if an intruder comes in your home to harm you, your protection is out in the yard where they can't help you.
I have a doggy door so my 4 dogs can come and go as they need to go out to take care of business, or want to run.
whether or now a dog is good with children and other people or not depends on his training, not his breed.
they should get to know people by being around them.
Some breeds are more nurturing by nature, and some, even some of the small ones are not as good for indoor dogs.
Beagkles are wonderful personalities, if they are raised right, but by nature they are rangers. they are by nature, rabbit hunters, and they put that nose to the ground and tke off. they are a little bit harder to keep in a smaller area.
I recommend you have some acreage if you have Beagles. I spent half my time out searching for the one we had. she was an escape artist, and she loved to roam off and explore.
I had a German shepherd in an apartment. she was perfectly behaved, and a dog like that will get their exercise if they have to walk round and round a coffee table.
My son raises Rottweilers, and for the first four years he raised one, he lived in an apartment. she had 2 litters while he lived in that apartment, and there was no doggy odors or mess.
He is a neat freak, and his dog made NO meses in his apartment, she didn't howl or bark when he was at work.
A couple of years ago they ended a five year study of children being raised in the house with animals.
their conclusion was that children that had had an animal in the house since the age of 1 year, and some had even slept with their pet, had fewer allergies than children that did not have a pet in the house.
I always slept with my pet, and so did all my children, and there were no problems with monsters in the cosets and under the bed. even with a little kitten to cuddle when I slept, I felt secure.
You don't get afraid and insecure, because you have your security in bed with you, or on the floor beside your bed.
Children learn more from pets than anything.
they learn more about giving, understanding, tollerance, and loyalty than they learn even from their parents teaching it to them.
They learn it by living it.
I recommend you go to a rescue group and get a dog.
These are dogs that have been abused and/or abandoned.
We take an animal, and keep it in our home for a week or two to see how it reacts with people, how it deals with children, and about it's personality, and what training i has and /or needs.
We can them guage what kind of family we need to place this dog with.
A family of teenage boys that rough house can handle a very rambunctious dog, wile a family with young children need a dog that is gently with small children.
To keep the animal clean enough to be in the house, and especially to sleep with a child, you only ned to keep them brushed, and flea free.
Once a month treatment with Frontline will keep away the fleas, and protect your dog from flea allergies and the other problems fleas and ticks create for dogs.
If the dog gets out and gets muddy, you would need to rinse off the dog with clear water, and dry if the foot pads and hairs collect a lot of mud.
Look at the coat on the dog.
My English setter, Australian  Shepherd mixes ( I have 2)and my Sheltie can get muddy as hogs, and when they dry, it falls off, and they just need a brushing. their coats are a little silkier.
My little Lhasa mix has a dryer coat, and when he gets muddy, and he loves to, it cakes on and dries on, he needs a rinsing.
Other than that, unless they get out and roll in something nasty, they ned maybe a couple of baths a year.
Only bathe when they need it to pretty up their smell.
Too much bathing will dry out their coats and skin and cause some real skin problems for you to deal with.
  some breeds like cocker spaniels are more prone to doggy orors, and have more cleaning and grooming issues.
the main thing is to let the boy and dog pick each other.
As young as the baby is, he may not have that much prefference, but watch to see which of the dogs seem to be more drawn to the baby.
My Austrlian Shepherd mix, Rowdy, was a rescue dog we took at 6 months old. My grand daughter was staying with us awaiting the birth of her baby, so granny could help her before and after the baby came.
Rowdy imnpressed us with the way he treated to other grandchildren. He goaged the amount of roughness to the age of the child. He could give the older children a real ropm, was but was so very gentle with the little ones.
Then when Alicia brought that baby in the house, Rowdy took up residence under the baby's cradle. wheh she moved her to the crib, rowdy slept under the crib. He was under that baby's bed any time the baby was in it. If other people were in the house, even family members, rowdy took up his station in the door to her room. He checked out EVERYBODY before they got to come in that room.
If the baby was asleep, he would try to block us from going in. You aren't supposed to wake the baby.
We now have another Australian Shepherd mix. rowdy is aus shep and ?, Big boy is austalian shephers and Husky.
They have almost identical personalities. Great with children, and other animals, but,,,,, they are both theives.
Rowdy can steal a plate of food off the table and get it through the house and out the dog door to the pation, without spilling a crumb or drop, and he can do it before you can blink.
Rowdy is a joy none the less. He is smart as a whip, and plays mind games with us. He steals things and hides them, and helps us look for them. I mean,,, he will crouch down and look under the beds, chairs etc, will look in closets, and all the time, he has hidden it in such a clever place, if a person were hiding it, they would never think of that place. sometimes it takes a couple of weeks to find what he hid.
He is a real clown, but one of the sweetest personalities I have even known in a dog. He loves evertbody, accepts other animakls, and actually halps me take care of rescues I foster.
But, I have no doubts, if someone showed a danget to one of the family, especially his grandkids whom he worships, he would rip them to shreds.
This is what you want, a dog that will not bite unless they need biting.
A friendly, loving, and loved, family member, will die protecting their family, and won't bite the wrong person and get you sued. size doesn't matter. even a little chihuahua will fight to protect it's family against a grizzly bear.
You can't get more loyalty than you get from a dog.
People who think you have to make a dog mean for it to be good protection are so wrong.
That is the kind of dog that can buy you a big lawsuit.
Another thing about getting a dog from the pound or a rescue group, they know what you saved them from, and they appreciate what you are doing for them.
YES, they DO understand.
Think of the dog as a 4 legged human being that has a fur coat and barks rather than speaks.
That is about all the difference..
Dogs are pack animals, so are humans. That's why neither dogs not humans do well in solitary living. We wnt our family ( pack) whether they are blood relatives or not.
When you get one from a pound, you can run the chance of an illness that is coming on, the rescue groups and Humane society dogs are examined by a Veterinarian, and observed by people who are aware of things to look for.
Yopu can get a sick dog from the pound, however that doesn't happen too often, and it depends on the animal control facility in your town.
are they just a grab and kill situation, or they for saving as many dogs as they can, and have good medical facilities for the pound?
You can go to the american Kenel Club's website and read the general charastics of the breeds, but you should keep in mind that any training the dog has had or not had, and the enviornment it is coming out of, and individual personality traits will factor in prominently.
It is good to know which dogs need a lot of room to run or they will get out of the yard and go on their own, and which are more homebodies.
Off the top of my head, some breeds that are more thought to be good family and children dogs.
German shepherd ( especially female, they like to mother the kids)
Golden Retriever
Labrador Retriever
Collie
St. Bernard, and Great Pyranees ( huge but wonderful guardians)
a little smaller.
Shelties.
Lhasa Apso ( good dogs for cuddling)
Poodles ( can be a bit easily spoiled)
Beagles ( but they like to run away)
don't discount mixes.
Your more thn a dozen breed dogs cn have some of the trits of everything in them.
Actually, I have raised almost every breed you can name, or mixtures of them, and the main thing is how the dog is raised and trained and treated.
there are no born bad breeds.
I know many Pit bulls that are wonderful dogs with children. Don't ees with their kids though, or you are going to be history.
Mean dogs are made that way by their owners. Simple as that.
I have never kown a mean dog that wasn't taught to be mean by someone, or allowed to rule the house by people that didn't raise them to mind.
They are just like kids.
If you treat a kid mean, it is going to grow up with anger and be a problem, if you allow them to be a shin kicker, they will rule the world if they can.
Dogs have the same family structure we have,
There is an alpha female and male ( mom and dad), and a beta female and male ( older brother or sister, aunts etc).
They follow this pecking order.
You have to establish that you and your wife are mom and dad, and they are the kids, and YOU will make the rules and they will follow them. You will be kind and fair, and loving, but the kids mind mom and dad.
A good site for information on care etc is
  www.dogage.com
That site has great articles on caring for, feeding, health care and a host of other useful information.
Write anytime you feel I can help.
Charlotte