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Define ‘pushed too far’ because this is a 6(?) yr old and its unlikely he ‘pushed the dog too far’ as that implies a violent behaviour towards the dog, more like the kid was cuddling or such, which by any rational isn’t pushing anything too far.
Our greyhound had a go at our daughter in a very similar way, he had been lying down and she was scratching him then gave an open mouth warning shot. No real damage fortunately for both of them but we were similarly concerned until she admitted she was scratching the side of his sheath and he had given several low growls before. Lesson learned, both have been fine together since.
Having seen my folks dogs that's how they tell each other to sod off, only they have the luxury of a pelt to take the blow. Dogs have hard heads and incredibly strong necks so it doesn't surprise me that sort of injury could occur.
So yes, that's an awful injury and no, it's not something that should happen but I don't think it's remotely as malicious as some of you are making it out to be. Stop trying to humanise the dog, it doesn't have the same emotional restraint as you or I. At the end of the day if the dig had actually attacked we wouldn't be having this conversation.
OP, you obviously have a lot to think about but it sounds like you are being sensible. Speak to your behavioural guy and see what they say, I don't think you're going to be able to filter much off of here amongst the noise. Best of luck and I hope your son heals quick.
There are plenty dogs out there that are bulletproof with kids. We may have been lucky that in 45 plus years of having dogs we have never had a dog do so much as bare a tooth in anger at any of the multitude of brothers, sisters, nieces and nephew’s etc. Maybe we have been lucky, I suspect the dogs were shit scared of my old man. He was definitely in charge and the dogs new it. At the merest hint of aggression they were metaphorically stamped on and knew it was not tolerated. This may sound harsh in modern times but seemed effective. He doted on every dog we’ve had and boy they adored him. He could house train a dog in a day. It was a bit harsh but I’ve known the dog jump up and even open the door! May be best to rehome him with a family with older kids. Wish your son a speedy recovery.
I didn't want to bring that bit up but my dogs were severely reprimanded for showing aggression early on and I've never had a problem.
Awful situation for the OP - and not something any of us as by standers can make a decision on. All I would say is that the dog will now not be bottom of the pack as your son will naturally be very nervous of the dog. Straight away your son needs to reaffirm his position in the pack, but not wind the dog up.
Whilst our dog was a pup we looked at our son as being dangerous to our dog, and our dog being dangerous to us and our son. Now our dog is a bit older and understands the hierarchy and our son is not being daft with her we feel 99% comfortable.
I will do the knee jerk response to info provided.
Sounds like you do not control your son enough. We saw behaviour in our son that provoked our dog, so we stopped him doing it and made it pretty clear to him that if he kept proving her she would most likely bite him and then we would have to have her put down. He soon stopped.
If we see our dog portraying any symptoms of her status in the pack ie trying to get between our son and us on the sofa, we get him to get her down. When she was younger occasionally she would growl at him, or even lunge at him mouth open and nip him. (rare occasions) We always let him discipline her ie shut her in another room, discipline her including a smack. The dog has to know their place in the pack. Do you have strong discipline of your son and dog in the house (and that does not mean physical control)
My kid used to annoy the dog when we first got her, he was 5 or 6. She "yapped" at him a few times and we always told the dog off and explained to him. Dog knew her place, so we could trust 100%, and wouldn't (have) want(ed) it any other way
Do you have strong discipline of your son and dog in the house (and that does not mean physical control)
Yes. The dog is well behaved, and knows his place, he's submissive and obidient, but always friendly with a wagging tail. His tail causes carnage, clearing the coffee table as he walks past happily wagging! My son... we're strict with our kids, in the normal sense. But they have much firmer rules than my Sister's kids. I think we're on the firmer end of the scale as opposed to lax. But he is 6 year old boy, it's very hard to get him to do what you want, it happens eventually, but f** me!!
I had a terrible night sleep. Still split on what to do. My wife believes we can keep him and is going to buy stair gates to create zones to ensure separation. I had a call back from The Dogs Trust, they recommended the same thing, stair gates and monitoring/noting the dog's behvaiour (any signs of growling etc). But said they'd be happy to take him from us.
We did discuss it as a family, seemed fair rather than just taking him. I'm the only one who is considering getting rid. And I'm the one closest to the dog.
But, The dog and the boy seem totally unchanged by it, in that neither of them are different with each other. This morning the boy was sat on the floor next to me. Dog trotts over to him, head on his lap and rolls upside down for belly rubs.
I do think they're both fine with each other, and it was a one off. But there's a large part of me that questions it all.
TBH I would probably slide into a dark place if I lost the dog, sh1tty timing with everything going on! I'm going to think on it.
To the OP, I hope your son recovers well and you manage to work things out with Buddy whichever decision you make.
There is a heck of a lot of outdated thinking on this thread regarding Alpha dogs and pack behaviour which has been pretty much debunked in recent years. In fact, the Professor who coined the term "Alpha" in regards to wolf packs has retracted it himself in recent years.
Talk of not letting dogs on the sofa because it elevates their pack status is nonsense. Mine get to lounge on the sofa quite happily (on my say so), because they are social animals and enjoy the company and contact. I don't think two dogs lying on their backs legs akimbo i.e. completely submissive and at their most vulnerable, is in any way challenging me or my kids status.
I may be wrong, but it reads to my like lots still advocate basically putting a dog in its place rather than properly training them through positive reinforcement, or removing them from any situation where the behaviour is unwanted.
FWIW my kids are big enough now and know how to handle the dogs, but when they were younger the kids and dogs were very seldom left unattended. Not because I didn't trust the dogs....
Stop trying to humanise the dog, it doesn’t have the same emotional restraint as you or I. At the end of the day if the dig had actually attacked we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Good point. The dog has bitten once, enough to get the child to stop whatever it was doing. Given the relative strengths and teeth if the dog had really wanted to do damage it would have done far more, sounds like one attempt to get the child to stop and a case of 'doesn't know his own strength '
Has your son opened up to what happened before hand?
May have been an accident, stood on the dogs tail, tripped and fallen on the dog or disturbed it whilst asleep.
Ours sometimes goes from a deep sleep where there's muffled barks and twitching legs (must be a good dream) to barking and darting around like someone's knocked at the door (they haven't) I'm guessing something in the dream triggers him, doesn't half make us jump when he does it 😁 he looks confused too when it happens
@kid.a - I don't like dogs. I especially don't like aggressive dogs. I don't think people should own them, and if they do I don't think they should be allowed to take them out in public.
I don't think your dog is an aggressive. Your son provoked it despite being told not to and I think he's now learnt the consequences. Any animal - including humans - would react the same way eventually. If the dog's an important part of your family then I'd not let it go unless it happened again and without provocation.
@flicker no not fully, but enough for us to get the gist of it.. apparently there was growling beforehand he said. AND he was very apologetic instantly rather than being concerned about his face.
But we're still mindful he's only a boy. And he's our primary concern
TBH I would probably slide into a dark place if I lost the dog, sh1tty timing with everything going on! I’m going to think on it.
how about if it happened again.
I had a big lab when I was six, used to wrestle and soft bite all the time (only child in the countryside, dog was basically my surrogate friend for years), the only time I picked up proper injuries was when it swung it's heavy head from side to side with an open mouth. It wasn't an aggressive move but by christ it hurt when you caught a canine tooth on the chin.
@kid.a for me he wouldn't need to say any more, he knows what the warning sounds like and the consequence of ignoring it. He knows he was wrong and hasn't tried to blame the dog for any of it, sounds like a good kid.
Talk of not letting dogs on the sofa because it elevates their pack status is nonsense. Mine get to lounge on the sofa quite happily (on my say so), because they are social animals and enjoy the company and contact. I don’t think two dogs lying on their backs legs akimbo i.e. completely submissive and at their most vulnerable, is in any way challenging me or my kids status.
I may be wrong, but it reads to my like lots still advocate basically putting a dog in its place rather than properly training them through positive reinforcement, or removing them from any situation where the behaviour is unwanted.
Its not that black and white.
Our dog has always been allowed up on the sofa. However bad behaviour is not. eg Our son would be sat next to Mrs FD giving him a cuddle. Dog would get jealous so she knew our son would get straight off the sofa in an instant if she got a bit nippy at him (not even biting just get slightly playful/aggressive). That is not acceptable in any shape or form so she would be taken out of the room. it continued until he was brave enough himself to confront her and stop her doing it.
Of course positive reinforcement is the way to go, but some behaviour is just not acceptable and cannot be altered by positive reinforcement. The first few times she got up on the sofa and just sat with our son rather than trying to get him off she got massive praise.
Its not that black and white.
Our dog has always been allowed up on the sofa. However bad behaviour is not. eg Our son would be sat next to Mrs FD giving him a cuddle. Dog would get jealous so she knew our son would get straight off the sofa in an instant if she got a bit nippy at him (not even biting just get slightly playful/aggressive). That is not acceptable in any shape or form so she would be taken out of the room. it continued until he was brave enough himself to confront her and stop her doing it.
Of course positive reinforcement is the way to go, but some behaviour is just not acceptable and cannot be altered by positive reinforcement. The first few times she got up on the sofa and just sat with our son rather than trying to get him off she got massive praise.
No, it's not always black and white and positive reinforcement is not used for unwanted behaviour. I also said...
or removing them from any situation where the behaviour is unwanted.
Which sounds like exactly what you did. It's two sides of the same coin. Reward good behaviour and remove from situations showing undesired behaviour until they learn there is no benefit in doing it.
Anyway, don't want to derail thread any further.
Personally I’d speak to a dog behaviourist both about dog behaviour and also the severity of the bite. Find out if this genuinely was a pretty savage bite or just a warning nip - but by a fairly sizeable dog so more damaging than a smaller dog.
We have a 4 year old daughter and a 5 year old cavachon so I feel your pain / know what it’s like. Eva can be quite boisterous with the dog regardless of warnings - but she loves Molly. The dog loves bubbles so Eva has taken to blowing bubbles for her even.
That said, dogs can be quite complicated - when we first had Eva the dog was used to having no kids around and no screaming baby etc. For the first few months the dog took to chewing stuff up (skirting boards / her toys etc) and being a bit naughty frankly which wasn’t like her at all. We had a few sessions with a dog behaviourist and she immediately identified the dog was stressed out by the addition to the house. Simple things like a rawhide bone with chicken round it every night introduced to her routine (to relax), and making sure she knew she was a dog rather than a human really helped. Within a month or so she was back to her normal happy doggy self.
I’d highly recommend reading In Defence Of Dogs. A great book to help in understanding how they see and interact with the world. Written by a bunch of scientists who actually know what they’re talking about and debunks all the pack stuff.
This might be a controversial view but I don't think 'at any sign of aggression' severely reprimanding the dog is correct.
Dogs are smart, and learn. Yes you have to set boundaries and deal with the cause - if a dog was to eg: steal food or clothes and growl to say they're not giving it back then it does need to be stopped because you don't want them stealing things and refusing to give them back.
If they've got a 6 year old constantly in their face then a warning that it's gone too far is healthy, you need the kid to understand and respect. Of course, you want the dog to have infinite patience with annoying 6 year olds, but that's unrealistic, eventually I reckon pretty well every dog could be provoked enough.
A warning growl meaning 'that's enough, I'm getting a bit pissed off now' is I think a good thing. The dog has to have a means of escalating too, if you remove that from them I think there's a risk that you no longer get any warning until one day the dog triggers and goes mediaeval on yo' ass with no prior sign.
You have my sympathies OP. I think you've done the right thing for taking stock and not rushing to any decision. Until you know what exactly happened, it's not easy to decide what to do. Have you told your son you are thinking of getting rid of the dog? Yes, it will be traumatic for him to hear that but you might then get the full picture from him as to what actually happened. I'm sure he's worried he'll be in more trouble but you need to know...
We've handed out beloved gorgeous dog over to The Dogs Trust.
I'm in bits guys. How's this dog affecting me so much.
Monitored son and dog over the next couple days. Son shows absolutely no signs of having learnt from the whole horrific saga. In fact he's dancing around in his face etc, you know just annoying him. We explained and threatened to no avail. It's not that we're not disciplining him.
Talked it over a lot with wife. We both agree, we can't rule out the dog snapping at him again. The dog may have learned now, bite as it works with the annoying little one.
I had a lot of discussion with close friends and family. And in the end that didn't help. The decision was still mine/ours to be made.
Anyway, thanks for listening, and chatting. I'm just off the cry again.
@kid.a - I know exactly how you feel having gone through this. We still miss our greyhound even though it was 7 years ago now.
But honestly, I think you've done the right thing. The 'what if' would never go away and hard though this it would be even harder if it happened again with worse consequences.
Best wishes buddy. A really hard decision, but the right one.
Really sad to hear but I guess it’s the best thing you could have done, if only because it’s harder to give up a child for adoption than a dog.
Chin up, the pain will fade over time and I’m sure the dog will find a happy home.
I suspect Dogs Trust will not place him with a home that has children so he’ll nothave to face the same situation again.
OP, as hard as it is, i think you’ve done the right thing.
If the lad hasn’t learned from it, it’s not fair on either of them to keep the dog.
Boys will be boys.
You have my sympathy bud, that must have been a horrible decision to make.
Sorry to read you've had to make a painful decision.
Monitored son and dog over the next couple days. Son shows absolutely no signs of having learnt from the whole horrific saga. In fact he’s dancing around in his face etc, you know just annoying him. We explained and threatened to no avail. It’s not that we’re not disciplining him.
Talked it over a lot with wife. We both agree, we can’t rule out the dog snapping at him again. The dog may have learned now, bite as it works with the annoying little one.
Sounds like it was the right one long-term though. It seems like it's a case of Buddy and your son just not being compatible rather than anything else, although your son still taunting Buddy isn't ideal.
Good luck getting used to the situation.
Aaa, how horrible for you all. 🙁 But sounds like the right decision.
Difficult but Dogs need to know who is in charge but also must be given respect.
Not easy with kids.
Feel for you OP, but 100% agree with your decision.
No doubt a difficult decision.
It's the dog that I have most sympathy with in this situation mind you. It's lost all it's ever known because it reacted to being taunted (repeatedly by the sounds of it).
It’s the dog that I have most sympathy with in this situation mind you. It’s lost all it’s ever known because it reacted to being taunted (repeatedly by the sounds of it).
This! Poor thing.
Blimey sounds like your son's bluff has been called big style in losing his dog. Hope he is able to reflect in time.
I'd be in bits too, but I think you've been forced to make the choice and done the right thing.
Not sure how I'd deal with the son, to be honest, if he was refusing to behave responsibly.
really sad, i honestly thought this was going to end with you keeping the dog, although i totally see why youve made this decision. and what a tough one it is, they wont come much harder.
just one question...... with the Dogs Trust, is it an option to get Buddy back at a later date if you change your mind?
Tough choice - but you’d never forgive yourself I suspect if something more serious happened. Not the dogs fault nor is it your sons. He’s 6 years old. Dog will no doubt find a great home. Like it or not kids must always come first in these situations for me, which sometimes seems unfair but is what it is...
I think so too, having not learned the lesson it's easy to say it's the kids fault but that would be no consolation if it happened again or worse.
Not sure how I’d deal with the son, to be honest,
by putting all the money you would've spent on vets bills, food, insurance, etc. into a fund for future counselling.
I had to re-home my dog 4.5 years ago (not due to the same circumstances as you) he was my best friend and I still miss him every single day. Luckily I managed to get him to the person who had two of his brothers, I can go and see him any time I want, but I daren't as it'll break my heart all over again.
Sounds like your son is out of control not the dog...I can understand what you've done but I can't help thinking you could have done more to stop your kid being a little shit..as well as giving the dog a safe space to escape to
Sounds like your son is out of control not the dog…I can understand what you’ve done but I can’t help thinking you could have done more to stop your kid being a little shit..as well as giving the dog a safe space to escape to
This. If me or my sister acted like shits my mum only had to start walking to the kitchen drawer to get the wooden spoon to beat us with to get us to behave.
Probably not allowed to beat kids these days? Dunno, haven't got any fortunately.
It's a shame, but if your son won't stop tormenting the dog, then the dog needs to be rehomed soewhere more suitable. Better that this incident doesn't happen again for both really.
Sounds like your son is out of control not the dog
Less out of control, more a slow learner.
. We explained and threatened to no avail. It’s not that we’re not disciplining him.
I really don't understand this. How could he be in the dog's face if you're disciplining him? Why is he even the same room?
Poor dog 😔 I hope you've made it clear to your son as to why buddy isn't around anymore.
I'm sure there was an earlier post from someone saying they'd take him on if you decided to re home him.
Shame. Your son will learn a harsh lesson when he inevitably realises he loved the dog.