I have a 16 month old Cairn Terrier that has been aggressive to my 3 1/2 year old son. What can I do?

Mr. Frawley,

I hope you can help our family. We have a 16 mon. old cairn terrier male neutered at 6 mon. He is generally a good natured dog. We have had typical problems with house training, but generally he is a typical cairn.

Problem is with my 3 1/2 year old son. There seems to be some confusion as to who is higher in the pecking order. My son is very gentle with this dog, but when the pup was 4-5 mon. old he bit my boy in the face. He still bares the scar. Over the past year this dog has tried to nip him 4-5 times. This behavior was not provoked, usually its when my son Joshua comes up to me. Evidently, I am Toto's territory. I've watched Toto when my son comes around me and Toto is very guarded, very protective towards me. The other night my son was eating a donut and had finished it and came up to me when I was watching TV petting the dog next to me and Josh said his donut was "Mmmm" Toto took it as a growl and growled at Josh. Tonight when Josh came down stairs he walked past Toto with a toy and Toto was very guarded with his toy and then came and jumped next to me putting his toy behind him and watching Josh with ears pinned down on his head and very watchful. I put my hand on Toto's collar just to keep control over the situation.

This sounds weird too, but two of the incidents were when Josh was naked, once, as he stepped out of the tub and into a towel I was holding, Toto was sitting on the floor next to me and the second was when Josh was learning potty training and was waiting for clean underwear. Both times Toto jumped to bite his privates. Luckily, I grabbed the dog before he could do any damage. Could Toto have felt threatened in some way, I don't know...Josh is not allowed to be naked around the dog.

Toto also was the dickens to house train and occasionally does still mark. Typically Joshua's toys...

In the incidents I have witness Josh did nothing to provoke this dog, actually ignored him. He is leery of him since he was bit. Toto and Josh play, Toto licks his hand, they play ball. Go for walks on the leash around the house, typical boy and dog kinda thing. But on occasion things change. My question is how can I change this pecking order and make my almost four year old son more dominant.

A new thing is Toto has gotten yelled at more for dumb things like peeing on the floor, in the trash and he'll run to his kennel to hide. He does the head down scurry to the kennel thing and if he does something bad he knows it. He is looking at me more for approval of his actions now more than ever. Almost like he tests the waters, real submissive before he enters a room or jumps on the sofa. He is submissive to both me and my husband. He also looks at my daughter who is five as a protector, too. Likes to sit with her. As a pup I flipped him on his back a lot, pulled on tails and ears just to help desensitize him to kids.

Joshua is the only one he does this with.

This is the second dog in our family that has done this. The first was a shelty/golden mix that after bottle raising as a pup and owning for 10 years, attacked my husband, who required 60 stitches. The dog I put down. I can't help but wonder if its something I am doing that is inspiring these dogs and even a cat to act this way (cat didn't bite, just was with me all the time. (I am also very close to my horses too) My animals seem to like me a lot (obviously obsessively)

Thing is Toto may have to find a new home and I hate to have to do that, cairn's our not the easiest dog to sell, except to a cairn lover...

Any help you can give us would be appreciated. I have obedience trained 4 dogs over the years, even did some dog showing in 4-h and actually made it to state. A prof. trainer is pretty much out of the question, so your looking at her...if I can't change this behavior soon, he's going to have to go. I can see something is going to happen soon just by Toto's behavior and I can't have my boy getting hurt.

Thanks for reading...

Kim