Mite

Quote:

My kids help me feed and train the dog

This is exactly what I would do only let your daughter feed the pup. Shows that she is the provider. Hold the pup back; let her put the food bowl down. Also, I would never feed pup treats that take awhile to chew on when the daughter is around. Around nap time, during pre-shool in a few years would be okay. In the meantime, use treats that the dog can eat immediately.

Our goldie doesn't like our nephew handling her. She would growl if he tried turning her over on her back. But throughout the years, she been fed treats - sometimes not intentional - by his hand so she isprotective of him even within the 'pack'. She would never bite but place herself between him and anything that threatened.

springerDIVA

#1 Roxie is a puppy. #2 your daughter and the puppy are "mentally" about the same age. YOU REALLY NEED TO WATCH THIS BEHAVIOR WITH OTHER THINGS. When she is fed you need to be able to put your hand in her bowl, move her food, touch her and let her know you're alpha first. If you can't do this then there's no point putting your child back in the line of fire. Roxie needs rules &limitations, if you can't provide them consistently then she needs to go to a new home with an experienced trainer. Thatbehavior isn't allowed inthe pack by the leaders.

Have you contacted the breeder?

Please tell me you are crate training this puppy.

Next vet appointment I would ask them to do a temperment testing/evaluation or ask a local trainer or reputable breeder (of any breed) or obedience trainer.

At10 wks grab her by the scruff her by the neck and give her a bit of a shake. This is what her dam did when she was with the litter. It's part of establishing the alpha role (you & husband), beta role would be your child (still a leader) and above the dog, who should be in a submissive stage to the child. This is VERY HARD TO ATTAIN with a small child in the home.

I would start her in group obedience classes as soon as possible should you decide to keep her. Once you and hubby get her foundations a bit more solid then teach the child how to handle the dog.

Just like when when handling a weapontreat it like it's loaded until you prove it's safe. Soteach the childthat a dog has teeth and anything closer to it's size he/she sees as equal or competition.

The AKC has a link on their site about kids and dog safety. Teaching kids how to approach dogs, etc.

Good dogs bite too. They start out with small episodes like this as puppies and if not properly trained and handled they can become aggressive.

Your child is more important than the puppy and you don't want her to have a fear of dogs as she gets older.

Phil from Maine

Exactly the wayI see it! Puppies are called puppies for a reason.. I like to break the pup from biting at me first, andI would use a real bone to do it. I would set the bone down so the puppy could get it and reach down to see what the pup does. If she growls I would take it away. Then try it again a little later on. After a while your pup would reconize that not growling it would get to keep the bone. ThenI would slowly get your daughter around her when feeding provided you or another adult is there with her. After yopur pup gets older it will understand better but, by keeping at it she will learn not to bite..

duckdog132

i guess i should have read the whole post better and seen how young this pup was. i agree that at this stage this pup can be changed but you cant let it go one any more!!!

crazylady

I always feed my dogs out of my hand for the first few months. Now that I have a son I have him feed the dogs out of his hand with my supervisen. From day one they know that they are a dog and it gets things from me. My son can take anything out of my dogs mouth without them caring. Even my one lab that has growled you can take things away anytime. I would make you dog sit before you feed it or before it gets any treat or toy. You need to establish dominance with the dog. You don't need to be physical. While all three of our dogs I roll them over and let my son stand over them while they are on their back. A dog on it's back is the most submissive stance for a dog. With your daughter standing over it the dog realizes that she is more dominant than her. Just my 2 cents.

Cara

The only thing you'll teach a puppy by 'throwing' it into its kennel is that the kennel is associated with punishment and is not a safe place, which goes against the den theorythat crate training is based on. The puppy should not have bitten, but equally the puppy deserves to have its own quiet, safe place to go to when it doesn't want to be bothered.

springerDIVA

Yes the kennel/cratemust always bea safe place. The door should be left open when the dog is not in the crate. You'll find that when they get tired they learn to go in on their own. You don't want to develope the problem of a dog hating to get in her crate, especially when she's going to use it to travel. Home goes with her.

We always leave the crate doors open when they're not in there. Our senior citizen will get in her crate when she's tired.The crates in the truck are always open as well when not occupied.

Dogs really don't get the concept of time out. They can't tell time (except when it's dinner time) or the gun cases & vest & boots & whistlesare out.

We don't have kids but we borrow them constantly to help us train our dogs. They need to know how to interact with each other. Always supervised and usually on leash or handler between dog and child.
Find a local trainer to work with you. She sounds like she could be a bit of an alpha female.

Jackies768

i shouldnt have said i smacked the pup around and threw her in her cage because thats not really what happened.(and i never actually said that i smaked her around.)i was just angry at the time of the post. i said "NO" and thensmacked her nose (not hard) and put her outside! after she was outside for about half an hour i brought her back in and she went into the kitchen got a drink of water and went into her crate and slept. there is a hole that a ground hog made that roxie plays in all the time if i let her out back. thats why she is tired when she comes in. i have to put lattice up to cover it (its under my deck).


but anyway, yes she is crate trained. shes a good dog i just cant give her the pig ears anymore or i have to train her not to growl when she has them (which i can do). she gets very small dog treats when im training her. she knows how to sit, stay, and speak already. she is also house trained. i give her positive feedback all the time when she does good things! the only negative feed i give her is when she bit my baby and peed or pooped in the house. i am very good to my puppy. she follows every footstep i take and we love each other.

i think her biting my daughter was just an accident because Roxie was in her zone after chewing on the ear for so long and didnt realize what she did. i was angry because she hurt my daughter but now that i look back on it i know she didnt mean it. i have always fed her in the kitchen with the gate up so amber cant go in there. and Roxies crate is always open for her to roam in and out of, which she does. amber and Roxie just happened to be in the same room while roxie was chewing on the ear because i was making dinner and had to watch the both of them. i gave roxie the pig ear not knowing how she would react if amber touched her, being that i only had the pup for three weeks. and that was my fault, i shouldve pu the dog in her crate. but we all live and learn and that is that. everything has been fine since then.

SWOSUMike

I would normally not tolerate that, but 10 weeks, the pup is treating your daughter like a littermate and would probably do the same with you at this point.

My male dog is very good natured but he was bent on being an alpha as a pup. I fixed it. Basically, I bit him back. I would grab him by the scruff of the neck and growl at him and even shake some. I had to be a little rough. I also would spray a mixture of 3 parts water to one part vinegar at his nose (not his eyes). Now he's one of the nicest dogs I know. A great dog and quite trustworthy. Bite your dog back now and you won't have to later. If the pup gets a little older and after several "convincing" sessions still does this, I'd send it back to the breeder. Like you said, there are too many good ones to feed a bad one.

Jackies768

thanks ill try the water/vinegar thing, and the scruff one too. thats a good idea. roxie hasn't bit my daughter since so i think it was just an accident. but i also havent given roxie and pig ears or bones since then either. i did try her again with the pig ear with myself though. i gave the pup a pig ear, let her chew it for about 5 min then went to take it and she growled and showed teeth and was ready to go for me but i took her snout and held it shut and yelled "no biting!" then i gave it back to her and let her chew it again for a couple minutes and grabbed it from her and she had no problem giving it up. before i feed her anything i make her sit now. that was another tip i got from this forum. (thankyou for that)