Be Dog Smart week

Be Dog Smart – help teach children how to stay safe around dogs

With summer holidays fast approaching and children due to spend more time outdoors over the next few months, Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest dog welfare charity, is launching its first official Be Dog Smart Week (19th-25th June), in a bid to help teach children everywhere how to stay safe around dogs.

Over the past 5 years children under 16 accounted for 8,000 hospital admissions as a result of dog bites– around four admissions every single day. Shockingly, 70% of these bites occurred on children aged 0-9, with over 1,000 of these incidents taking place in 2015-2016 alone. In the past five months, the charity has had 142 calls from worried parents wanting to give up their dog because their child doesn’t know how to interact safety with the family pet.

Whilst there is no escaping the hard fact that dog bites can and do happen, Be Dog Smart Week provides an important opportunity to teach children how to act safely around dogs. Our hope is that the Be Dog Smart campaign will ultimately prevent more dog attacks and help to keep children safe around dogs.

Help us by signing up now to share this important message on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. Once you are signed up, the Thunderclap will post on Tuesday 20th at 1pm. For more information on Dogs Trust’s Be Dog Smart campaign, please visit www.bedogsmart.org.uk #bedogsmart