Dogs and babies have been appearing on funny videos for the longest time. One of the funniest compilations that I saw was with dogs protecting children or babies. I remember one of them that featured a Rottweiler and a baby. The baby was sleeping on the sofa and the Rottweiler had just sat down on the floor by the baby. The owner decided to play a prank on the dog and see how he reacted.
He tried getting close to the baby and putting his hand on him, but he did this very slowly, so it would look suspicious to the dog. The Rottie immediately got this and started growling once the man got his hand at an arm’s reach of the baby. The man giggled on the video because he could not believe that his own dog would growl when he approached his own son.
Why do you think dogs display this sort of behavior? Remember that dogs have been bred for work purposes for the longest time. One of these ‘jobs’ they had was protecting the family, especially children and babies. When men went out of their villages to work, they would leave their dogs to watch over the property and take care of the family.
What the man did when he was approaching the baby very slowly is look suspicious to the dog because that’s the way a criminal would do it. On top of that, a Rottweiler is one of the breeds that has been used for guarding purposes for the longest time.
I had the opportunity to train one of my dogs to protect my children and let me say it is not that difficult. For some reason this is a behavior that seems to be etched in the brain of most dogs, especially the breeds who have been trained for this in the past. Now, guarding babies is not the only thing that dogs do, sometimes they also watch over them and comfort them.
Sometimes, if dogs see that babies in the family are crying, they will go to them and comfort them until they are cheered up. Other times, the child may not seem to need anything, but the dog will go and do something for them anyway. One example of this, is the dog in the following video. A dog is seen near a baby who has gone to sleep. What he does next will melt your heart!
