Honestly I would love to require people get a liscense to own a dog
That’s the case in Germany, depending on state and breed. With what I heard about US dogs and their utter lack of training (e.g. not being able to lie under a table under a restaurant and chill) you should probably make it universal, though.
(let alone have children)
…that’s not going to happen. How about teaching pedagogy and developmental psychology in school, say ages 14 to 16, start of the “seeing kids as kids” age. Speaking of, domestic animal psychology is actually a great topic for biology, doesn’t need to go into depth but some fundamental stuff about cats and dogs so that people are less likely to misinterpret what they see should easily fit the curriculum.