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Originally Posted by Yorkiemom1  How a parent raises their children has absolutely NO bearing on the reason I personally do not sell to families with children under 6 years of age. Young children do not have the physical coordination skills developed to the point where they can run across a room without tripping and falling! You can wish it on them, you can wave your majic wand, you can be the absolute best parent God ever blew breath into, and have the very best behaved children that have ever existed, BUT they have NOT developed the motor skills necessary to manuever safely around a small Yorkie puppy. That is in Gods hands, not yours! By the age of 5, it is getting much better, and by age 6, they can usually run across a room without their feet getting tangled up or them falling over because their bodies are ahead of their feet or the other way around. By age 6, if the parent has done their job teaching the child to act properly around a small dog, the child has the physical development and maturity and coordination to control their movements, and they can be trusted not to fall over the puppy in their sheer excitement to see and play with the dog. Now, after age 6, I do monitor the behavior of the child during the visit....but that is really not accurate, as they are usually on their best behavior....although I have had two occasions where I have had to corrall the child and ask the parent to keep them close. I guess a better solution would be for ME to go to their house and see how the child acts on his own turf. |
Can't blame you for taking this stand. No matter how wonderfully behaved little children are, they are still uncoordinated little children and prone to far more accidents of all kinds than adults and don't have the mental skills to employ sufficient focus or good judgment 100% of the time. And it only takes one moment of child-like activity, behavior, distraction or forgetfulness to seriously injure or kill a very small dog. My sister's small Yorkie puppy was unceremoniously dropped on its fragile head causing a brain injury, emergency hospitalization for a week and months of seizures by our very well-raised and normally well-behaved, highly intelligent young niece.