Agree 100%.
Been there, done that. Get rid of the dog. No question.
If I had to do it over again I would just take the dog out back and shoot it myself.
If you had to do it all over again, why couldn’t you give it to someone else? Or at the very least to an animal shelter–it may die there but it does have a better shot at a new life.
I would never give a dog that showed any agression towards any person (short of an intruder) to somebody else.
It’s just a dog. As much as people want to try and treat them like their children they are not.
torie, if you can afford to hire a behaviorist, I highly recommend it. I expect you’ll see an amazing turnaround, almost immediately, just by learning to clearly assert the dominant position of both you and the baby. We hired one for our dog and it was like night and day, within an hour of the training. Ever watch The Dog Whisperer? It was like that.
And, for those of you concerned about the baby’s safety, a trainer can quickly assess whether the dog is in fact a threat and whether it should be removed from the home.
I’m glad for this thread. I wouldn’t have known that a dog not showing aggression to a crawling baby could be a danger signal.
When relatives visited a month ago with their 9-month-old, our dog wasn’t himself. He’s always approached toddlers and older kids and wanted to play and lick and be petted. But with the crawling baby, he just stared, looked back and forth between us and the baby, and he backed up whenever the baby got close. No growling and no hackles, but he was obviously uncomfortable. Now I feel like maybe we dodged a bullet.
It makes me sad, too, but IMO, it probably ends up being the best thing for the dog. If the owners don’t care about it enough to A) work with it and train it properly, B) put in the effort required to properly re-home the dog after exhausting all training efforts and C) tend to view the dog as a disposable possession… what kind of quality of life would the dog have had anyway? Being bounced from home to home through the shelter/dog pound system? Possibly being placed with an abusive or neglectful home? Turned loose to fend for itself? Chained to a tree in the backyard and soundly ignored?
I’m thanking all the dogs/gods for Elenfair’s reasonable and helpful post. Exactly what I would have recommended. Use crates, muzzles, and baby gates and work hard to train both the dog and the baby. The number of people who expect a dog to adapt but never bother to train children how to treat dogs astounds me. I have to do it for them when little ones march right up to my Boston terriers and want to play. My dogs are good with kids, but they are jumpers and will knock a toddler right over. I have to hold my dogs to maintain control and then I work with the toddler to teach him or her how to approach a dog.
And I refuse to rescue, foster, or take in any dog who’s being ‘gotten rid of’ because someone had a kid and couldn’t be bothered to learn how to re-train or train the dog in a responsible manner. When approached by these people, I always respond that someone else’s irresponsibility is not my problem to solve.
Good on you Torie. And good luck with Java. I’m sure the little fur monster will adapt to his new status in the pack in no time.
I’ve mentioned on here before that I am a foster home for Aussie Rescue. I would say that about 60% of the dogs that come into the program come in because someone had a baby and didn’t want the dog anymore.
Thank you for coming in here and asking for advise before calling the shelter/rescue/vet. If you stick to the program that Elenfair suggested I think you’ll be just fine.
It’s not a kid, but it is something you are supposed to take responsibility for. Doesn’t pretty much every dog show aggression to someone at some point, before they’re taught not to?
First, thank you for being the voice of sanity and cracking the whip about training the dog.
BUT…
You don’t mention never allowing a dog to eat at will, but only on command. Why? Making a dog Sit and wait for the command to eat is probably the easiest and most effective training technique I’ve ever stumbled across.
And torie: Listen to Elenfair. Be the Alpha and train the dog.
Oh, and train the child, too. Many of the same techniques are very effective, but I wouldn’t advise biting his nose. Looks bad on paper.
Seriously. Some people’s priorities…
My brother’s friend was mauled by the family dog as a child and had his ear bitten off. He has no fucking ear. Yeah, the dog hasn’t bitten the baby yet, but by the time she does bite the baby it’ll be too late, because he’s not going to have a nose or an ear or an eye.
At the very least muzzle the dog.
:rolleyes:
Add my thanks to **Elenfair **for being one of the few reasonable & informed posters to this thread.
Yeah. And probably not a great idea to crate the kid, no matter how tempting.
???
They are called ‘playpens’.
I realize your dog’s already 8, but you could try separating them until your kid gets old enough to not be threatened by a 6lb fur ball. Then let it back in to bond!
Although, by that time, you’d have to protect the dog from the intrepid toddler.
j666: Part of the Nothing In Life is Free training method I recommended involves withholding the dog’s food almost completely – NOTHING in its life is free except water and air. For any morsel of kibble, it “owes” you something. It wants attention? It must offer you a behavior in return (a sit, a down, a stay, a wait…) Feeding it its meals (portions of it, since you feed good chunks of its food through NILIF as it is tethered to you otherwise) involves it having to offer you some form of requested behavior before it gets its bowl. For my dogs, that’s a “Kennel up!”, “sit”, “wait” sequence.
Not necessarily aggression as much as “inappropriate behavior”. Usually, it’s when they’re puppies and we chalk it up to playing. We teach them manners. Hell, we call it “bite inhibition”. EVERY PUPPY out there will try to gum you half to death, and anyone who has had one will tell you that those needle-sharp teeth hurt like a bitch. We’ve all had to teach pups “no, no bite!” when they were playing. They have had to learn that playing with people is not the same as playing with other dogs. They also have to learn that people are above them in the pack, if they were particularly dominant puppies in their litter. Some pups are defiant little shits and that’s why you take them to puppy classes and basic obedience.
All those steps are what allow you to take control of the situation. Power goes straight down the leash. Your tone of voice, your handling of the pup, your playtime… it all helps establish these new rules for the dog. This is part of why rescued dogs can be so hard to work with sometimes: we don’t know what their formative months were like, which can sometimes make them total time-bombs. Poor socialization can “ruin” a good dog.
This said: There are fewer “bad dogs” than the alarmists would like you to think. There are, however, many “bad owners”. Most behaviorists and vets will tell you that almost all bites to children that were bitten by their own dogs are bites that could easily have been avoided. The number of dogs who have something medically wrong with them that triggered aggression (brain tumors, some forms of epilepsy, rage syndrome, etc.) are rather rare.
Don’t toss the dog out with the bathwater. Many dogs we see in rescue come from the “we just had a baby, so the dog has to go.” scenario – almost all of them are wonderful animals. Don’t be a complacent idiot either. Just because Muffy is Cuddly-Wuddly doesn’t mean he’s going to like it when Bratleigh climbs all over him or comes barreling his way towards his food dish or his favorite toy. Learn to recognize dog body language. Learn to read your dog for signs of stress.
BE YOUR DOG’S PACK LEADER. A happy dog is a dog who knows who is in in charge. If your dog feels he needs to make the decisions around the house, then you’re boned. If your dog turns to you for leadership, for the love of god, lead.
Here’s an example from my training log: My Alpha, no-nonsense Aussie has had to be taught to “check-in” with me before taking matters into his own paws when it comes to discipline of the rest of the pack. He otherwise would fight with the others or take on any other dog he’d meet on the street. Now, instead, knowing that I will handle things because I’m the one who wears the Alpha Dog Pants in this house, he has learned to quite literally look away from the dog he wants to ass-kick, look up at me, nudge my hand with his nose, and wait for the command to do something about it. From there, I can give him a “four on the floor” (keep walking, dumbass, all four paws on the ground…) a “guard” (walk, but slightly ahead of me, and if something goes weird, you’re allowed to bark – something we transferred from other training), and so on.
This check-in approach means that now, when he’s unsure or stressed about something, he’s far more likely to come to me first for guidance. MY JOB is to listen to that and take care of matters for him: For example, if he were the kind of dog who was surrounded by a bunch of kids and, for some reason, it was getting to him? Put him somewhere safe where he can chill out, take him out of a situation where he could get reactive, and so on.
Why in the hell would you ever want to own a dog, given this attitude? Perfectly behaved dogs don’t just spring forth from the womb that way. It takes time and effort, something people like you are obviously not willing to give.
So, again, why would you own one in the first place? Let someone who gives a damn do the hard work and reap the rewards.
Elenfair, I would just like to add my thanks for the truly helpful and informative posts you have contributed. I have been around dogs all my life, but am always willing to learn things, and you have given me, and I suspect and awful lot of other people, many things to think about.
It is also worth remembering that aggression or hiding is the default reaction if you haven’t bothered to establish rules for your pet. I’ve dealt with food and possession aggressive dogs before and had little trouble establishing dominance. One of our neighbors had a lab/hound mix that was greedy. She would take all the toys and guard them, growling at the other dogs and even the family. Otherwise she was a well behaved dog. I told them you have to just take the toys from her. They were afraid of getting bitten, and were of the mind that any dog that “bites the hand” would have to be put down. Since they didn’t want that situation to occur, they let her have her way, which reinforced the naughty behaviour. Since my dog was so well mannered they asked me if I could train her, and I told them that I would try, but I was not a professional, and couldn’t guarantee anything. The first time I walked into the yard, all three dogs greeted me, then the problem dog moved off to her bed to protect her things from the new person. I put on a welder’s glove, walked over and took the tire biter toy she was playing with straight from her mouth before she could ramp up and walked back across the yard and sat in a chair ignoring her. She tried the following steps in order.
First she followed me over and grabbed at the toy’s rope.
I pulled it away from her and told her “no, Mine.”
She grabbed it again and growled.
This time she got a firmer “no” and light tap on her muzzle for a correction. I kept ignoring her.
She tried climbing up into my lap to get the toy, and I pushed her away gently but firmly, along with another “no, mine.”
She then sat and tried pawing at my leg, poking me rudely and whining. This too was unacceptable so I continued to ignore her. After about 5 minutes of whining she got tired out and decided to go play with the other dogs. That was what I was looking for. I let them play a while to be certain she was truly diverted, then called her over. I had her sit, and showed her the toy. She wiggled excitedly. I had her sit again and gave her the toy. She immediately headed back to the bed area, and I had to head her off. This time I took the toy with no growling, whining or other problems. It took time, but eventually we got her to share with the others, and give up the toy aggression all together, though she still is greedy to this day. The point of this long story is that until someone gave her some rules, she was responding in the only way she knew how to. She didn’t have the other behaviours as an option, until someone showed forced her to try something else. Aggression had always worked in the past.
Go you, Acid Lamp!
Proves one of the simple principles of sound dog training: Dogs (like kids) repeat a behavior because it WORKS for them. If it stops working, they’re going to try something else.
Shaping behaviors is not all that hard. It just takes patience, a plan, and a little bit of ingenuity. “Well, it should have known better!” is something I’ve heard a lot from pet owners, and a statement I wish they’d think twice about using.
Right. Just like your 2 year old “should have known better” when she tries eating a mudpie. Dogs aren’t humans, but they have the rough intelligence, and learning capacity of a young toddler; nobody argues that an ill-behaved toddler ought to be put down.* They just need to be shown how to behave and disciplined with consistency.
*(well not a LOT of people anyway)
**(unless you are at the movies)