Dog biting child: What to do?

[Anonymous]

OP, it is more important to me to teach my family about loyalty. The dog goes.
When we got our dog (non rescue) I told my husband that if our youngest, who was deathly afraid of dogs did not get over his fear in three weeks, puppy had to go. It all worked out in the end, but at least my son knew that he came WAY above the dog.

[Anonymous]

In my neighborhood, a dog escaped from its owner's house and nearly mauled another dog to death while it was being walked. Apparently this dog had a history of such attacks. The owner kept the dog for at least 2 weeks after that incident and had children living in her home. She finally reformed the dog. It doesn't surprise me that the OP is asking this question because there are lots of people out there who place more importance on sparing a dog than protecting the lives of their own children and their neighbors. This is truly a misplacement of priorities, and I don't get why someone would place the life of their pet over the life of their child.

[Anonymous]

I think this thread should be titled, "Child harassing dog: What to do?"

I'm not saying the dog ranks higher than your child, but seriously, your child is the one causing the problems here.

If you're not conscientious enough to keep them separated, then I guess you'll have to give up the dog. But it would be your fault, not the dog's. Let's just get that straight.

Yes, the problem is the child and the PP trainer has excellent advice for how to deal with the situation.

If you are a serious poster, OP, you'll ignore all the ridiculous people who think you need to get rid of anyone, boy or dog, in this situation.

All you need to do is invest in some serious training for both of them.

[Anonymous]

Tonight, we caught our child doing exactly the same thing to him.

You know, reading this thread I couldn't help laughing about how typically DCUM the responses were. ACK! MY CHILD WILL BE SAFE! CALLING ALL REPUBLICANS TO MY NEIGHBORHOOOD NOW! WAYNE LAPIERRE WILL SAVE US FROM OUR OWN CAT AND DOG!

I salute the OP's willingness to give it a go. Kids learn how to deal with animals through their interaction and discovering their own bounderies. Kids and critters are a wonderful combination!. And look, DCUM folks, the kid here "did exactly the same thing to him the next day."

The dog's fault. Yep. And I think OP's kid is going to be much better off in the long run than everyone else's "protected, safe" suburban kid. I could really puke at some of this stuff.
I

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Tonight, we caught our child doing exactly the same thing to him.

You know, reading this thread I couldn't help laughing about how typically DCUM the responses were. ACK! MY CHILD WILL BE SAFE! CALLING ALL REPUBLICANS TO MY NEIGHBORHOOOD NOW! WAYNE LAPIERRE WILL SAVE US FROM OUR OWN CAT AND DOG!

I salute the OP's willingness to give it a go. Kids learn how to deal with animals through their interaction and discovering their own bounderies. Kids and critters are a wonderful combination!. And look, DCUM folks, the kid here "did exactly the same thing to him the next day."

The dog's fault. Yep. And I think OP's kid is going to be much better off in the long run than everyone else's "protected, safe" suburban kid. I could really puke at some of this stuff.
I

Puke away!

[Anonymous]

Puke away!

OK, DCUM, I shall. And as I do so, I'll thnk of your safe, unbitten kid who will never know what it is to live with a critter. No sense of cooperarion, shared space, warmth etc. But at least your kid will be "safe." Sleep well, DCUM. You're doing a great job with your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Puke away!

OK, DCUM, I shall. And as I do so, I'll thnk of your safe, unbitten kid who will never know what it is to live with a critter. No sense of cooperarion, shared space, warmth etc. But at least your kid will be "safe." Sleep well, DCUM. You're doing a great job with your kid.

A biting aggressive dog is not a "critter" to share space and warmth with.

[Anonymous]

I would work with a trainer first- give it a try before rehoming. We had a similar situation and it worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up with such dog. Nobody ever got bitten again after he bit me once for playing with his food.

How do YOU like when you're eating and someone comes to pull on your plate, stuff their hand in your food, etc?

Teach the freaking kid how to deal with the animal.

+1 the other children in the house don't seem to have this problem. This child needs to learn how to respect dogs' space or it will happen with every dog. The dog also needs to be trained NOW that it can't behave that way. It isn't a problem dog that can't deal with children. It is one child who doesn't know how to treat a dog and the dog has probably been physically hurt by DC more than once.

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, it is more important to me to teach my family about loyalty. The dog goes.
When we got our dog (non rescue) I told my husband that if our youngest, who was deathly afraid of dogs did not get over his fear in three weeks, puppy had to go. It all worked out in the end, but at least my son knew that he came WAY above the dog.

How is getting rid of a member of your family (the dog) loyal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it is more important to me to teach my family about loyalty. The dog goes.
When we got our dog (non rescue) I told my husband that if our youngest, who was deathly afraid of dogs did not get over his fear in three weeks, puppy had to go. It all worked out in the end, but at least my son knew that he came WAY above the dog.

How is getting rid of a member of your family (the dog) loyal?

Dogs are animals.

[Anonymous]

You should speak with the rescue group you adopted from about the situation. They may have a trainer they can provide at no charge. They should provide advice and may even offer to take the dog back. If you did adopt through a rescue, chances are you can not rehome your dog anyway. You would need to bring the dog back to them. You should try training to see what they sat before marking the dog as a biter. Was it a nip or an actual bite? And yes, there's a difference. When my DC was a baby, he fell on my dog when the dog was sleeping (on my bed) and got nipped on the nose. Not thrilled about it but the dog got startled and reacted.

All dogs need to know who is alpha and if its not you and your family, it will be a hard road ahead. Right now your dog has the upper hand with your child and that needs to be reversed.

As for your child, you should work on how to behave around animals. Granted you can keep a watchful eye at your house but the kids should know to never approach a dog without asking and never bother a dog while they eat or are playing with something in their mouth. It's just not safe and you want them to be aware of this when you're not around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Own of dogs and parent of children. I'm so tired of people kicking pets to the curb instead of teaching children how to behave around them. It's unfair to both the pets who need to be regimes and the children who grow up with pet phobias. TEACH YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR PETS. Stop being lazy!

+1000
Kid was PULLING on the bone. There are cases where ultimately there is a bad fit between dog and small children and the dog would be better of in another home, but if you have a kid pulling on an item while the item is IN THE DOGS mouth, are you really surprised there is an altercation?

Yes, it takes more work, but kids can learn how to act around animals, and animals can learn to not see child as a threat.

The problem with this reasoni ng is that kids are unpredictable. They are humans with free will who explore and push boundaries. Truly, they can't be trusted to remember not to pull in the dog's bone. Or to walk up behind their dog and pet it while its eating. Therefore, if you have both children and dogs in your house, you must be able to trust the dog you have will not bite. My child could take food out of my dogs mouth with her hands and eat it herself and the dog would nuzzle up to her for a belly rub. If you have kids and your dog is not like that, you made a bad choice and need to re-home the dog. Is it fair to the dog? No, but what's the alternative? Once it has bitten, it can't be trusted.

The alternative is SUPERVISION. My dog has never so much as bared his teeth at anyone, and I truly don't think she would ever hurt my kids but guess what, I never intend to find out! Until the day comes that I feel absolutely confident that my kids wouldn't do something stupid and dangerous like try to take a BONE OUT OF THE DOG'S MOUTH, the children and the dog are never together out of my sight. It's not hard -- you can buy gates for like $50 and place them strategically to separate kids/dogs at times when you can't watch them.

Because here's the thing: dogs are unpredictable too. Don't fool yourslef htat just because your sweet Fido hasn't bitten anyone YET, he can be "trusted." It doesn't work like that. At the end of the day he is an animal, and it's irresponsible just count on him not to react to your child as an animal would. Even if he's never done it in the past, you can't get inside his head or know what might spook him at a particular moment, particularly as he gets older and may have more aches and pains or trouble hearing or seeing.

I honestly feel bad for the dog in OP's situation, because he should NEVER have been put in that position. Getting rid of the dog may indeed be the best option, if OP is not willing to supervise/separate kids and dog until the kids are old enough to be 100% trusted. My kids are 3.5 and 5 and so far we haven't hit that point but I prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to this stuff.

[Anonymous]

I cannot for the life of me understand the posters who would place the convenience of a dog over the safety of a child.

[Anonymous]

I think only the OP can know how in danger her child was in and if she feels the dog needs to be rehomed. OP needs advice and not exactly from here. Speak to a trainer and get some perspective on the situation. If the bite was such a big deal, I'm sure the dog would have been gone by now. I'm glad the OP is looking at options rather than ditching the dog instantly.