Our 9 month old male terrier/lab mutt bit our 4 year old tonight, not a particularly bad bite, a couple of small punctures around her eye. He’s never been aggressive before, or snapped at anyone, despite our daughter constantly pestering him. Hes medium sized, maybe 30 pounds. We’re wondering how concerned we should be. We’ve warned our daughter countless times not to get her face up in his, but tonight we were all on the couch watching a movie in a dark room and she started jumping around, put her face up to his and before we knew it he quickly snapped at her. A little blood and a lot of tears. We’ve never dealt with anything like this before, so wondering, is this totally unacceptable puppy behavior and a big problem, or is it something to be wary of, and a lesson for our daughter but not necessarily a big problem, or something else? We got him in August when he was 8 weeks, he got his shots shortly after.
WTF? Who is more important in your life? Your daughter or your dog?
Your daughter could have lost an eye. May have permanent scars. Get a dog when your daughter is older…
This falls into the sort of thing that we cannot really assess for you fully over the Internet. You should talk to a dog trainer, who will ideally watch both your dog and your child in your house together.
You should also immediately stop letting your child crawl all over your dog (or put her face in his or share his space without your complete attention - watching a movie does not count).
Dogs and small children are often a very difficult situation and you may need professional help just to make sure that you are setting the right ground rules for BOTH of them.
From what you have said here, it sounds like your child pushed your dog too far, but, again it is impossible to say that for certain over the internet. Please involve a professional.
If you knew your child was doing something potentially dangerous, why didn’t you stop her? Do you expect your dog will never lose his patience? You were setting them up for this kind of incident, and it happened.
StG
Nailed it.
Normal dogs don’t just snap at people. Get rid of the dog.
I wouldn’t be concerned. It’s perfectly ordinary behavior for an animal to lash out when it’s constantly pestered by a human or another animal. If your daughter had been doing this with a sibling, the sibling would likely have lashed out too.
I’d say it’s a lesson for your daughter in interacting with both animals and humans. It sucks that she learned the lesson this way but she’ll remember it because it hurt. Make sure your daughter understands the lesson and supervise their interactions for a while.
If she pesters the animals of other people and they snap at her, will they have to get rid of those too?
Read the OP. The dog didn’t “just snap” at his daughter. There had been constant pestering. It wasn’t out of nowhere. Most animals and people will snap out against those who’ve been pestering them for a while.
No doubt the dog warned her many times before by growling, etc. And now he has progressed to actually correcting her misbehavior (since her parents seem unable or unwilling to do so). Hopefully, she will learn a lesson and behave better, at least when the dog is around.
Right – if she did this to another dog, then the same result might happen, and it might have been even worse. ANY DOG will bite if tormented, especially if someone keeps getting right up in its face. That’s huge no-no. Think about it: you’re a dog, you can’t say, “hey, back off and leave me the fuck alone, would you?” The dog didn’t act aggressive, it acted like a typical dog. Getting in a dog’s face is a sign of a challenge, IIRC? (Same with a cat – when my sister was little a few times she’d pull our cat’s tail and would end up getting scratched.)
Show your daughter the proper way to pet and touch the puppy, and perhaps let her participate when you feed the dog, or take him outside. She might be a little calmer around him.
When I was 3 years old, and had just been adopted, my parents’ dachshund sneezed on me. Being a dumb 3-year-old I tugged its tail to scold it for getting me all covered in sneeze-dew. It promptly bit me on the chin, but (still dumb) I just looked at the dog in puzzlement, wondering why it had done that. So it bit me on the nose.
My parents got rid of the dog IMMEDIATELY. And they weren’t even particularly protective parents.
Some more occurred to me: OP, it’s good to want to get other opinions before acting. It’s an understandable mistake on your part and your daughter’s (she’s 4, after all).
When I think about it, if I had been 4, pestered a pet, the pet had snapped at me and my parents had gotten rid of the pet, I’d feel pretty bad about that afterward. Your daughter was likely trying to be friends with the dog but didn’t know how to do it properly yet, just like young children will often hit/shove each other as a socially unskilled sign of friendliness.
Was he asleep? I find Dopers have extreme positions about this, either “put the dog to sleep, now” or "your fur baby was just defending himself. This is a difficult situation that I can’t say I don’t have experience in, yet don’t have a good solution for the short term except keep an eye on both of them.
I wouldn’t freak out about it.
Hopefully you scolded the dog, comforted your daughter, and told her that’s what happens.
It should never happen again. That’s the way this usually works.
If the dog shows signs of doing this again, that is a different story.
Fuck that. Normal dogs do not exhibit this behaviour.
Get rid of the dog.
Find a normal dog or cat. Pester it for a while. See what happens.
Normal Dogs snap at people when they feel threatened. Daughter learned a lesson, parents need to reinforce the lesson, and everyone will be fine.
I think Sunny Daze nailed it. You say the puppy had never been aggressive before. This sounds more like defensive behavior. The dog sounded like it felt threatened and stressed. It’s a puppy. It’ll learn. Your daughter will learn, too, but it does sound like you could use a visit from an expert in dog behavior. And all interactions between dogs and young children should be closely supervised, even if the dog has previously been gentle and tolerant of the child. Even the mellowest of dogs can have a bad day. It’s up to the parent to watch the dog for signs that it might be a good idea to end playtime before the dog gets too stressed or fidgety and could use a break from the kid.
Sounds like the dog has pretty good bite calibration. Sounds like you and your partner have absolutely no authority or control over your household. Also sounds like your kid needs to learn how to listen and mind. The dog deserves a more responsible owner than your family. The dog is behaving normally. Unfortunately, so’s your family. You might want to consider learning to do better.
And for the record, my eleven year old dog and the nine year old dog who’ve lived together forever still occasionally brace each other and end up with some snapping and scuffling. It’s part of normal dog pack behavior. My dogs aren’t all that used to or tolerant of kids and I watch them both like hawks if younguns are around because they get freaked out by shrieky voices, sudden face in their face and rough handling. They don’t put up with it, either. Hence why I watch them and tell kids not to run up to them without asking first. You’d be amazed at how many parents simply will not teach their kids this simple protocol. You’d think they wanted the little dears to get bitten.
How many warning signs from your dog have you ignored?
The title of this thread should be, “I didn’t teach my child well enough not to bother the dog, and eventually the dog had enough.” You say you “warned” your daughter countless times, but clearly you didn’t actually teach her to respect the dog. Did you ever enforce it or punish her in some way for doing it? Or did you just say, “Now there, Sweetie, don’t bother the puppy” or something equally ineffective?
You didn’t teach your child to respect the dog, so the dog did himself. Hopefully she’s learned her lesson this time. You’re very lucky you have such a well tempered, gentle dog who barely gave a warning nip.
One of my cats was given up for adoption by his previous owner, because their toddler was constantly asking for trouble, and finally got it. I rescued him from the shelter, and he’s been the most affectionate and loving cat I’ve ever had.
It’s not your dog’s fault. Take him to a shelter, and let someone else give him the type of home where he won’t be abused. Get your daughter a goldfish.