I like to interact with dogs, and sometimes I feel moved to interact with children (damn ovaries!). I start the interactions the same way with both: by smiling and (if appropriate) saying hi, then I continue if the creature responds positively.
Somewhere between 50% and 75% of the time, the dog people try to temper the dog's interaction, by making it sit or scolding it about approaching me. I'm not sure whether this is intended to protect the dog from me or to proect me from the dog. (And I'm not sure what an appropriate response on my part is - I want to pet the dog and it seems to want me to pet it, but I don't want to mess up its training. But it doesn't seem fair that dogs with stricter training should never get to play with a willing passer-by.)
But I have never in my life had anyone try to temper my interaction with their child, not even total strangers. They let me say hi to their kid, they let me do finger-grabby with their baby, they let their kid tell me all about Dora the Explorer, they let me convince their kids to press elevator buttons for me, I've even had strangers stand by smiling while their toddler hugged my leg like I was her new best friend (I thought she had the wrong person, but even when I looked down and made eye contact she just kept hugging my leg and smiling back up at me).
I'm not sure what this means. If it had to be one or the other, I'd rather get to play with the dogs.
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