Kids and Dogs: Relationship building with whistle training

Our black lab, Freddie, was only 2 when our son was born and I was so excited about them growing up together. I’d seen all the photos on Instagram of dogs snuggled up next to toddlers beds and children being inseparable from their furry best friends, so was fully expecting this amazing relationship between the two of them! Fast forward 6 years and most days I honestly don’t think they realise eachother exist, which has totally blown our minds! I mean, how do you not notice an animal who is bigger than you living in your house?? My daughter on the other hand is the polar opposite! She adores Freddie ands wants to do everything with him and gets upset when he’s not at home. Interestingly, Freddie isn’t interested in her either (unless there is food being dropped from her hands). I remember someone telling me once it was a pack thing, where dogs don’t recognise children as part of their pack so don’t really acknowledge them.

We have recently been through a stage where my daughter was getting increasingly upset whilst out walking Freddie, as he doesn’t listen to her. We try to practice recall training with Freddie fairly regularly and our daughter would spend most of the walk calling his name, eagerly holding a treat in her hand ready to give it to him when he came to her. Only he never did go to her! We tried lots of different things, but he just didn’t seem to respond to her voice at all. Then one day it suddenly occurred to me to get her to try whistle training him. We have dabbled with whistle training before, Freddie knew the concept so we decided to give it a go!

We gave my daughter her own little whistle and treat bag and set off for the woods. It took a few whistles for Freddie to realise that my daughter had the whistle not me. We made sure that I stood away from her and if he came to me he got nothing, but if he went to her she gave him a treat. My daughter was delighted that he now came to her and her whole face lit up every time she blew on the whistle. We had to have a few conversations about not blowing the whistle every 30 seconds, but once the initial excitement wore off, she became much better at regulating how many times she blew it.

This was a win situation for us all round! My daughter loves being able to train Freddie, Freddie gets more treats on a walk and I don’t need to remember to keep practising recall! What’s not to like?

So if you are trying to get your child more involved with your dog, I can highly recommend whistle training.  If you have any other ways that your child interacts with your dog I would love to hear them.

Lizz Banks is a mum of two small humans and a black lab named Freddie. Lizz is the Co-founder of The Parenting Daily, a site aimed at providing parents with all the latest parenting advice, tips, news and activity ideas.