So my dog, Toby, is a one year old neutered min pin/ Chihuahua mix. I’ve had him since he was eight weeks old. He’s generally a good dog, listens well, likes to play and gets along with my daughter. He’s always been terrible with other people though. Even if he sees them every day or often enough he should know who they are. The routine when there’s a visitor is he’ll bark his head off at first but generally settle down. Now depending on who it is, he’ll either growl at them while he sniffs them or he’ll just kinda keep his distance and observe. There are, though, some people he just won’t calm down around. Generally men, but specifically my eleven year old nephew and my fourteen year old niece. Now my niece, I can understand. She’s always addressed his nervous growls by stomping her feet and yelling at him, making things worse. She’s reluctantly turned to just ignoring him at my request. My nephew, however, has done nothing to him. He mostly ignores him or tries to play with him or give him treats.
Tonight he was over with his dad (my brother) and Toby was growling at him like usual and so I had him give him some treats. Toby took them, wagging his tail and generally being happy for them. So I handed my nephew a toy for him to play with Toby. He threw it and Toby went for it but didn’t want to give it back. This is how he plays with me, trying to keep me from taking the toy so I didn’t think anything of it. But soon it was pretty clear he didn’t want my nephew taking the toy at all and finally I told him to just leave him alone. So we’re all talking a few minutes later and my nephew walks by Toby by like two feet and suddenly he lunges out and bites him in the leg with no warning. Luckily he was wearing pants so he just got a bite shaped bruise but needless to say my brother was pissed.
Toby has never bitten anyone before but now I’m scared to death that he will again. What could I have done differently to prevent this? What can I do to prevent it from happening again? My parents are convinced he’s basically mentally disabled from having parvo as a puppy but I find that highly unlikely. I know he’s a good dog but I just can’t figure out what his deal is with certain people.
I’m not well-versed in this stuff, but it seems like you gave Toby a reward for misbehavior by giving him a treat. Maybe try giving him the treats when he’s exhibiting positive behavior, so he associates the positive behavior with the reward?
I recognize this is a serious situation and wish you the best of luck in addressing it.
Okay I took and uploaded some videos to vimeo. If anyone could watch any/all of them, and give any advice as to what you think his “issue” is (or maybe he doesn’t have one) I’d really really appreciate it.
This one is about a minute long and demonstrates some of the odd looks and poor sound localization. I’m on the viewers left relative to Sammy.
This one is 30s long, shows him excitedly running down the hall for his walk, but before that he turns and stares behind him for several seconds. He does that many many times when we’re not in the apt.
This one is the longest, at 2:30. It just shows a lot of his odd glances again
Finally, this one is only 6s but is a longer bit of his upward stare
Sorry you’ve let your dog make it to a year old, still thinking it is okay to “bark his head off” or “growl” at other people. That sort of behavior ought to have been trained out of him immediately. Now that he thinks it is okay to bite folk he ought to be familiar with, he is (IMO) quite a distance from “a good dog.”
There are any number of training methods you could choose. Giving the dog treats when it behaves poorly is not one I’d expect to be terribly successful. You’ve dropped the ball as a responsible owner. You have a lot of work ahead of you. Or, if you are not willing to put in the effort, you should get rid of the dog.
And don’t be shocked or upset if your brother doesn’t want his kids around a dog that bites.
For some reason, people treat little dogs like aggression is no big deal, or they think it’s “cute”. It’s not cute and needs to be trained out of the dog. If he did something like that to a big dog at the dog bark, the BD could tear him apart before you knew what hit him.
This is serious enough that I’d try to find a highly-thought of local trainer and get a consult. And certainly don’t put the dog in that situation again - crate him or confine him to a room when guests come over.
So even ignoring the immediate suggestion of just killing the dog, I can’t say the responses were easy to read. Not saying that they were inappropriate or wrong, just a situation where it’s not really what you were wanting to hear. To be honest though, I’m not sure what I was expecting or wanting. I guess I was hoping to hear from other dog owners who’d had the same problem and how they handled it. But at the same time, I do realize I’m the one completely at fault for his behavior, and that I missed a very small but vital window of time when he was a puppy for socialization.
I think that this is probably beyond my abilities to handle on my own. I’ll look into dog training in the area, and hopefully it won’t be too expensive. In the mean time, I’ll keep him in my room when people come over to avoid something like this happening again.
You’ve let this dog behave like an aggressive asshole for his entire life and now he’s done an entirely predictable thing for an aggressive asshole dog. Kill him or pen him up when people visit. If there’s a dog whisperer method to correct him maybe that’s a way to go but the main problem is your tolerance of this behavior to date.
I’ve seen this kind of behavior in smaller dogs where they go ape shit when guests come over and the owner is utterly oblivious to the behavior.
I don’t think you’ve missed any unique window for training. You’ll be able to do so now. Training tiny dogs is especially difficult, however, so consider working with a one-on-one trainer.
Don’t beat yourself up (too much!) You fucked up, but at least you realize that now, and intend to improve things. I realized my post pulled no punches, but I feared anything warm and fuzzy might encourage you to think anything other than that you have to really buckle down - on both you AND the dog.
Good luck.
I think you DID miss a window, to the extent that most dogs (IMO) are more malleable when very young. If they don’t have any firm habits, it is easier to urge them in the direction you wish. But even old, poorly behaved dogs can be retrained.
Just don’t kid yourself that there is a quick fix, or that after a certain period of training, you can assume it is fixed permanently. I’ve had goldens. My current one is 8.5, incredibly mellow, great offleash… Yet I NEVER completely trust him with small kids. Just part of owning a dog IMO.
