We have a 6 month old male Golden. He's a pretty good boy and he's shaping up slowly, but we have one big problem with him. We have an 8 year old son and Theo plays really rough with him. He jumps on him and frequently nips him, sometimes hard enough to draw blood. It isn't done in an aggressive way, he doesn't growl at him or anything, but even playful biting can be a serious problem as far as I'm concerned. It's like he is treating Blake as a littermate and is playing with him the way he would with another puppy. He doesn't act that way with the adults in the family and in fact is usually quite gentle with us.

I think it's clearly a dominance issue, but I'm not sure how to resolve this and I'm very concerned with letting him around my grandchildren who are even younger. We've tried having Blake try to be more assertive with him, standing taller, using a deeper tone of voice, and also trying to yell and startle the pup when he acts up, but nothing is working. It doesn't usually happen in front of us, so we aren't able to discipline the dog in time to deter him. I've only raised one dog before and she never bit anyone in her life, so I'm a little baffled on this one. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Adrian
Salt Lake City, UT

Personally, I'd have your son stop playing with the dog when there are no adults around to supervise and enforce your son's commands to him, until the dog is older & better trained. Are you taking your dog for walks so he gets tired out & can listen to you & your son better? Have you done any basic manners training with him? Are you guys playing non-rough games with him?

I had a similar problem when my dog didn't want to obey my husband when we first got married. For the first 6 months, I made sure I was there at all times when they were together, in order to enforce his commands, and let the dog know that he was above her in pack order. If the dog didn't start to obey within a couple of seconds, I stepped in to let her know that she had to obey that command, even if it came from my husband.

Mine also knew a "gently" (spoken in a quiet tone of voice) command when we around kids & I would leash or put her in a down position if it looked she was getting too rough. With that being said, I didn't have her around my neices and nephews without either me or another adult present.

Hope that little bit helps & good luck!

This is an accident waiting to happen. Stop it now befor it getsinto the papers. in contrary to popular believe; dogs and kids don't mix that well

Greetings

Johan

Hi Adrian,

sounds like your golden now see's your son as his playmate. Think about a litter of pups and how they play with each other.
Unfortunately, because its got to this point, all rough housing between your son and your dog stop...now, actually ALL rough housing has to stop, be it with your son, husband, you or any other person that plays with the dog. I agree with not letting the two together alone. Teach your son other games to play with your pup. Throw a ball, frisbee toy, but nothing that would involve your son moving quickly thus enticing your dog to give chase and rough house. You need to keep them seperate if you're not around to keep an eye on the situation.
You need to let this dog know that his rough housing is unacceptable. If he starts to try and play that way with your son, you need to give a correction. If a "no" works with your dog and will make him stop, use that. Keep the dog on a leash inside the house so that you can correct him when he does this behaviour. It may take quite a few leash corrections for him to get the idea. But be PERSISTENT with this. Otherwise its just going to get worse and he's going to probably see all children as littermates to play with.
You have to let the dog know that your son is a higher rank than he is.

 Quote: Adrian Gentilcore

It doesn't usually happen in front of us, so we aren't able to discipline the dog in time to deter him.

Thanks!

Adrian
Salt Lake City, UT

This really worries me. NO WAY would I allow my son at 8 years old around any of my dogs unsupervised, especially if I knew this behavior was a problem.

YOU are responsible for protecting your child and teaching your dog what is acceptable behavior. Letting them be together without you being there is dangerous. Like Johan stated, stop this now before we read about it in the newspaper!

When you can not be present, both mentally and physically, the dog needs to be confined away from your child. When you are all together, the dog needs to be under control and on leash.

this dog needs leadership from you and once this is is established THEN incorporate your son.

If you haven't read the free articles on this website on groundwork to becoming a pack leader, then I would start with this right away. http://leerburg.com/articles.htm

We have done basic manners training with him and he does understand "gently" when it comes to taking treats. We can try to associate that with play time as well. We are also very careful not to allow any rough play with any of our animals and we are very firm with our children about treating the animals gently. We are now closely supervising all interactions between Theo and any children, but that kind of makes me sad because one of the reasons we got the dog was for a companion for our son. He misses our St. Bernard so much. She died from a gastric torsion at the beginning of the summer.

We will try the leash corrections and see if we can bring him around, but I'm wondering even if we can condition him to respect our son as an individual, how do we broaden that category to include "children"?

One thing one of our friends suggested was to have our son feed him as a way to establish dominance. He's gotten really good with us and will usually sit quietly while we prepare his food and will wait for his release command before he eats, but I doubt if he will behave this well for Blake. Maybe that's a good place to start - supervised, of course.

Thanks!

Adrian

Don't forget, this dog is a pup, and if he is taught now what behaviour is acceptable around kids that will carry through the rest of his life. Just be persistent with his boundaries. And make sure you're consistent, if you slack and let him get away with it a couple of times, thats all it will take for him to get back into his old habits. Make sure he listens to you each & every time.
But, it is never a good idea to leave any dog alone with younger kids...too many hidden signals (eye contact, leaning over the dog, grabbing etc etc)can cause a dog to snap. You never know how a dog is going to perceive whats being done to him. Each and every dog is different, and although your son might've been ok around your other dog alone, i just wouldn't take the chance with this new dog. It would only take a split second for a play session to end in an accidental bite that causes damage.

Try to keep the dog on a leash at all times in the house, especially when he's around your son. That way you can give him a correction even if your not right beside him. Just make sure the corrections are hard enough to get through to the dog. You will have to gauge that yourself.

Go through this site and read the articles that Cindy (in a post above) suggested. They will help you out with establising your's and your sons role as pack leaders and how to raise a dog with kids.

Your thought on having your son feed the dog is a good idea, but you can also maybe start trying the NILF (Nothing In Life is Free) program with him. If you do a search on the site using that term you will see some very good threads discussing just how this works. I would go into it, but I am just about to head out! lol.


Good luck and keep us posted

Wendy

Adrian - everyone would love to have a good looking dog that lays quietly by the end of the sofa until YOU FEEL LIKE PLAYING or YOU FEEL LIKE TAKING THE DOG FOR A WALK.

Dogs like this are not born they are made through training ans hard work.

You wanted a family dog and you don't understand pack structure, you don't understand rank and you certainly don't understand dominance and you don't understand that these things don't mystically just happen. They require work, training and consistency .

Should you care to argue these points I would point out that "YOU HAVE ALLOWED THIS DOG OUT OF YOUR SIGHT AND IT HAS BIT YOUR SON" These are not the actions of someone who UNDERSTANDS !

Do you know what I get out of your posts?

1- You want a nice family dog.

2- You want a dog that will get along with the kids.

3- You are not consistent in your training - a HUGE mistake

4- Your don't understand pack structure.

5- You have not trained this dog Get a prong collar http://leerburg.com/prong.htm and my Basic Dog Obedience DVD http://leerburg.com/302.htm

Read the FREE e-books on my web site about this. http://leerburg.com/dogtrainingebooks.htm

Then have a family meeting and change the way you live with this dog.

If you won't do this - then re-home the dog, because frankly this is more of an owner problem than a dog problem.

Adrian,

I feel your pain. When we rescued an 8 month old Doberman a few months ago, I could have written a very similar post as yours. My dog would get into a "playful" mood, start doing hots laps around our fenced off area, and occasionally run into/nip my 6 year old son on the way by. It was clear that he viewed my son as a litter mate. When the dog got into this mode, it wouldn't listen to any commands, which made it clear that he did not respect me. After the first incident, I allowed my son to be with the dog ONLY if the dog had a prong collar and a drag leash attached. The next few times my dog started doing those "idiot runs" I was able to step on the drag line as he got too close to my son. The ensuing correction sent the dog into an immediate "down". This was my patchwork solution before I discovered Leerburg.

I was frustrated, my wife was frustrated, and my son was frustrated. My brother adopted a dog a couple years ago and just adopted another dog two months before we decided to get ours. Their dogs fit right into their household, almost seemlessly (with little or no "ground work" done). What was WRONG with OUR dog, we thought. At the time, we vaguely understood the concept of pack leadership (thank you NGC for bring Cesar Millan into the mainstream) but that superficial knowledge was not enough to rein in my dog. I was doing everything I thought I could do, even putting him through an intermediate puppy obedience class with me.

Enter Leerburg. After an exhaustive search on the web looking for answers, I fortunately stumbled upon the Leerburg site. I discovered that we were doing SOME things right, like using a prong collar (to the dismay of the obedience class instructor, but I stuck with it) and using a crate, but we weren't fully educated on how to use these tools into the context of LAYING THE PROPER GROUND WORK with the dog. Giving credit where credit is due, the Doberman rescue also suggested that I do many of the same things Leerburg teaches, but the Leerburg DVDs (Basic OB, E-Collar, and Dominant Dog) helped hammer in and reinforce what I was taught by the Doberman rescue's trainer in even greater detail.

The past couple of months has NOT been easy. In fact, I would even say it has been exhausting, but the results have been most encouraging. He's already showing signs of being a great dog. In fact, over Thanksgiving, my extended family couldn't believe how well-behaved he was for a 10 month old dog who is still very much a puppy. I almost find it hard to believe that this is the same dog that bit me twice while guarding food and snapped at my wife and son a couple of times when they touched his crate. However, we know that we can NEVER "check out" in terms of the dog's training and that we must remain eternally vigilant.

It's A LOT of work, but the positives outweigh the negatives. This kind of dog was put into our lives for a reason. My whole family has slowly transformed into calm-assertive pack leaders. I in particular have learned to remain calm even when things aren't going my way (i.e. when the dog doesn't listen). It was incredible seeing the cause-and-effect of how my getting into an overexcited state would only make the dog act worse.

If you follow Ed's advice, there CAN be light at the end of the tunnel.

Good luck,
Joe