Updated Aug 23, 2022
Cane Corso And Kids
Obviously you must be careful when considering bringing any dog into a family with small children. And because the Cane Corso is a large, strong and muscular dog, you must be extra sure that you know what you are doing.
In this article we will carefully consider the question of whether a Cane Corso dog is good with kids.
There are three elements to consider.
Breed Characteristics
What is the typical Cane Corso temperament?
By nature, the Cane Corso breed has a highly developed protective instinct towards his family. It is deeply ingrained in his nature to protect and guide those he loves, and those in his family group. He will instinctively be good with kids.
Guarding and protecting are at the core of the Cane Corso’s origin as a working dog. Modern breeding has somewhat softened his working dog origins in favor of today’s requirements to be a family dog. But these things are still at the heart of his nature
But it doesn’t stop there. There are other things we must be aware of when figuring out if any dog is good with small children.
The broad nature of dog breed characteristics and temperament, are likely to be less important than the individual personality and temperament of your Cane Corso.
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Individual Personality Traits
Your dog is an individual. All dogs are, just like all human beings are individuals. We humans share certain characteristics, but there is a wide variance in individuals. In humans, some people are meek and mild, some are docile, and some are aggressive. Some are leaders, and some are followers. Some are kind, some are mean.
In just the same way, individual dogs have their own personal characteristics.
And further to that, the circumstances under which your Cane Corso puppy is raised, brought up, and trained, will also have a large impact on his characteristics as an adult dog.
If an individual dog is not treated well, if he is not shown respect and love, he may develop individual personality traits which are unpredictable.
If he suffers from abuse, he may develop underlying aggressive characteristics which are not typical of the breed.
But a typical Cane Corso, given normal upbringing and good circumstances is highly likely to be an affectionate and loving family member .
Obviously, this is the dog you want. And if you raise your Cane Corso from a puppy, you have every opportunity to ensure that his personality, temperament and characteristics are exactly like that.
This dog will be very good with kids. He will recognize children as part of his family group, and he will be affectionate, loving, and very protective towards them.
This is obviously the ideal you would want from your family dog. And it is absolutely likely to be the case with a Cane Corso pup who has been raised and trained well.
Work With A Reputable Breeder
Also, in this equation, the Cane Corso breeder plays a very important role. A good reputable breeder will be able to steer you towards a puppy who has all the right characteristics to begin with.
You don’t want the most alpha puppy in the litter, and you don’t want those at the very bottom of the pecking order. You want a puppy from the middle ground, with easy-going personal traits which will allow the breed characteristics to come through.
Your job as a Cane Corso owner, is made very easy with such a puppy. He will easily become a good adult Cane Corso dog. All you have to do basically, is treat him well, with affection and love. A great family dog will be the natural result of this, a dog who will be great with kids.
Common Sense
The first principle here is that no dog should ever be left alone with a child. No matter how gentle the dog, no matter how much you trust him, interaction between dogs and children should always be supervised.
This is not necessarily because you think the dog might deliberately harm the child. It is just as much about accidents. A dog is very mobile, very agile, very quick, and any dog can easily knock over a child and cause harm in any one of many accidental ways.
Responsible dog owner, responsible parent
Yes, you have responsibilities in both of these areas. And combining these properly ensures that your child is not at risk.
As a responsible dog owner, your duty is to make sure that your dog is taught how to behave.
Dog training is a very broad topic, but here we are speaking in terms of interaction with your family, specifically. Your dog needs to know who the leader is. He needs to know who his family members are. And he needs to know how to behave with everyone in his family.
Your dog's behavior can be based on pure affection, and still be inappropriate. For example, he may jump up on his family members, just because he loves them and is excited to see them. Nevertheless, jumping up is an example of a behavior pattern which must be discouraged.
Jumping up on adults can scratch them, or ruin or dirty their clothes. Jumping up on a smaller person can knock them flying and cause injury. This may not be what the dog intended, but it is clear that the jumping up must stop.
The bigger the dog, the higher the consequences of any mishaps.
With a very large dog like the Cane Corso, the consequences are at the highest level. Once again, we are not necessarily talking about deliberate bad behavior by the dog, just the fact that his size can cause worse injury if a child is bumped or knocked over.
Dog training is beyond the scope of this article. But at a minimum you need your dog to understand and obey some basic commands, such as sit, stay, down, come, no, etc.
Some of the basics of obedience training can be really easily integrated into your daily life.
Each day brings multiple opportunities, within your daily routine, to train your dog and reinforce your leadership.
For example, the simple act of feeding your dog provides an opportunity to teach him to sit, stay and maybe another command or two, depending how you organize it. This opportunity is there naturally, probably twice a day with the feeding routine for most dogs.
You can click the button below for more information on our favorite and recommended dog training resource.
Responsible Parent
As a responsible parent, you must also ensure that your child treats a dog with respect.
Although many family dogs can be incredibly patient and understanding, it is just not wise to allow children to poke, pull and push the dog. This is a young child’s natural behavior, so you must teach your child not to do this. You must be on hand the whole time the child and dog are together, and you must step in any time the dog is being manhandled.
Once again, there is obviously no bad intention in a child acting this way, it’s just what a small child does naturally. Nevertheless, just like the example of the dog jumping up on people, this well-intentioned behavior pattern in a young child can cause a problem.
So, it must be stopped.
The most patient dog in the world may have an automatic reaction if he suddenly receives a sharp pain. And the action which was appropriate when he learned interaction in a litter of puppies, is not at all what you want happening to your small child.
The above is not intended to paint a black picture.
Your Cane Corso is entirely likely to be a fantastic family dog, who wants nothing more than to love and protect his family members. All that is necessary is you treat him with affection and respect, and always act as his leader. While your children are very small, it is just common sense to keep them under supervision at all times.
Our Cane Corsos have fitted perfectly into our family with no effort at all. They are good with adults, children and other animals. Just the natural day-to-day life where we care for them, and look after them has resulted in a great relationship. We enhanced this with crate training, which you can read about here: Crate Training A Dog and some basic training, which you can read about here: Do You Want A Really Well Behaved Dog? They are really great family dogs.
Our children are no longer small. But if they were, we would have no hesitation at all in allowing and encouraging interaction with our Cane Corsos. Naturally, as comprehensively covered above, we would be supervising at all times.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Cane Corsos aggressive?
Not by nature. Any dog can end up being aggressive in specific scenarios, such as if he is being mistreated. And the larger the canine, the more potentially hazardous that aggressiveness ends up being. However the Cane Corso is not naturally more aggressive or more unsafe than other dog breeds.
Will my Cane Corso protect me?
Your Cane Corso will protect you to some degree. The Cane Corso is a mastiff breed, originally bred as a protection dog. As a breed, those impulses are still present. And Cane Corsos can be outstanding guard dogs. Nevertheless, you need to also think about the character of the specific dog, in addition to his circumstances and training.
Is a Cane Corso a bully breed?
There is a bewildering number of dogs which fall under the bully breed umbrella. When you see that several of these dog breeds appear to share absolutely no common ground, it's even more perplexing. But, in fact, when you look deeper, they do. They can all be traced back to the Mollosser dogs of Ancient Greece. The Cane Corso is known for a family tree which goes all the way back to the Mollossers. So, yes indeed, the Cane Corso is a bully breed.
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