On Dogs
Dean
While I mention XRLQ, don't miss reading his excellent piece on family dogs and certain breeds. Important info there, and not likely what you're expecting to read.
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Dean's World uses and recommends:
That said I agree 100% with XRLQ. Never ever trust a dog with a child unless you are 100% confident that the kid can "take" the dog. Dogs see a kid as a peer NOT as a leader, and as a result will try to assert their dominance over the kid when the leader is not around.
This is one reason why Spike, my dog, is a toy poodle mix. Heck the smallest cat can whip his butt...
Small size is no safety guarantee. Our pug isn't very big, but piss him off &he'd take on a bear. And he tries to assert dominance over everything, even me. But then pugs are a whole lot of dumb in a small package. lol
I will say that one of XRLQ's most salient points about dogs cannot be said enough: they are pack animals and they generally view the adult humans in the households as the "alpha" members of the pack. So how they behave with the kids when YOU are around does not necessarily reflect how they behave when you are NOT around. Parents should not be foolish in that regard. It's not that the dogs are dangerous and evil when you are gone, but they are different, and you should know that.
There are real dangers to leaving kids around ferrets or cats too. Especially ferrets, especially around infants. (I love ferrets, by the way.)
All that said: it is well-known that some breeds of dogs are particularly well-suited to being around children and some not. White shepherds, for example, tend to have a good reputation for being around kids. Other breeds, not so much.
The point is that you need to see pets not just as fun family members, but almost like children in terms of responsibility toward them: you know they may misbehave when you're not around, and you can't make easy assumptions about them. Including the most careless assumption of all: that they'll act the same when you're not around as they will when you are. Most dogs won't. Even very good, very friendly dogs. A lot of dogs will assume they are in charge when you are not around, and you should recognize that when it comes to babysitters or your own unsupervised children.
As for a recommendation for Kevin: I dislike Beagles as everyday house pets because they do in fact bark a lot, a LOT A LOT A LOT, and frankly when they do bark they sound like someone is abusing them. Seriously, we have a family with a beagle near us and every time he barks at all it sounds like his owners have tied him down and are torturing him with blow torches and pliers--and all he's doing is whining that he wants his owners to let him into the house.
If you want to buy a dog and seriously make him a part of your family, you have to ask a lot of questions: do you plan on having kids in the next 5-10 years? Do you live in an apartment or a dwelling with a tiny yard? Are you up to the discipline of taking care of an animal that needs a lot of attention? Etc. To answer the question effectively you need to give a very realistic set of answers to questionsn like that.