Can you ever trust your dog around your baby? We don't have a dog (and never will- neither of us are really dog people.) But, there was a recent case of a dog killing a three day old baby near my town, and I know there was a big thread on weddingbee where a dog killed a one year old at his birthday party.

People's reactions to these stories always seem to include a lot of people saying, "That's what dogs do" and how it's the parents' fault because they should never leave a dog alone with a baby. So, at what age is is acceptable for your child to be left with your dog? It just seems like if dogs are as dangerous as everyone makes it seem, I can't understand why you would want to have them around children at all.

I started thinking about all this because my sister is pregnant and has two dogs. My daughter is really scared of her dogs, although they've never been violent. Mostly, I think she's just not used to having them around and they are really loud and jump up on people. But my sister's baby will grow up around them, and it seems like there's a point where you trust your dog to be good with your kid. How do you know when you can really trust the dog and know that it's not going to grab your baby and shake it to death in the minute it takes you to run across the room to stop it?