Have you heard this before? Dogs and puberty

[Anonymous]

OP, is your son respecting your dog's cues? He may be escalating because they aren't being respected. You said, "He doesn’t want DS to pet him without me or my husband sitting close by. He will growl and snap if DS persists."

This reads as though the dog has to repeatedly escalate to ge your son to back off, leave him alone and respect his space.

This is much more likely to be the issue than hormones.

[Anonymous]

Behaviorist with 20 yrs of experience… I would ignore the hormone/aggression theory bc it doesn’t really matter if the dog is aggressive with your son bc he smells different. The dog does trust your son for whatever reason, start there. Have your son rebuild the relationship with the dog from the ground up. Have your son take part in feeding, positive reinforcement training, and walking. Do not allow your son to roughhouse the dog, get excitable with the dog, or every overly affectionate. Your son should be the dog’s role model and teacher. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I’m positive my son has not done anything to the dog. He is very good about respecting the dog’s cues and I’m the person who tells him to try again.

I’ll stop doing this of course but it’s been confusing to have a dog that will let me take good out of his mouth and would let me lay on him if I wanted to but will not even let my son stick his hand out to pet him when he was before.

It’s the change that concerns me. The dog was great with him before but now is very wary, like he doesn’t know him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’m positive my son has not done anything to the dog. He is very good about respecting the dog’s cues and I’m the person who tells him to try again.

I’ll stop doing this of course but it’s been confusing to have a dog that will let me take good out of his mouth and would let me lay on him if I wanted to but will not even let my son stick his hand out to pet him when he was before.

It’s the change that concerns me. The dog was great with him before but now is very wary, like he doesn’t know him.

Have your son feed the dog every meal and talk him for walks. If it continues hire an experienced dog trainer(make sure the trainer is a male).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’m positive my son has not done anything to the dog. He is very good about respecting the dog’s cues and I’m the person who tells him to try again.

I’ll stop doing this of course but it’s been confusing to have a dog that will let me take good out of his mouth and would let me lay on him if I wanted to but will not even let my son stick his hand out to pet him when he was before.

It’s the change that concerns me. The dog was great with him before but now is very wary, like he doesn’t know him.

Have your son feed the dog every meal and talk him for walks. If it continues hire an experienced dog trainer(make sure the trainer is a male).

Good suggestion. My dog was humping both my kids until they took charge of caring for him and then he completely stopped. Now he only humps DH.