If you had a dog when you brought home your child

Did you have any issues with growling ?


My dog is a love love, huge mush. LOVES kids. LOVES people. He has loved her since the day she came home. If she cried in her infant swing, he would sit by her and lick her feet (his way of trying to help). Never showed any jealousy.
Fast forward to 9 months old, She's crawling. She crawls over to him. She likes to touch his feet.
He usually is fine with it.

However, twice he gave a low, short warning growl to her(probably within the span of a month). I immediately corrected him and once had him go lay on his bed, second time sent him outside.

Yesterday, he gave more of a growl (not what I would consider his usual warning growl). I again corrected him & sent him outside. He knows he has done wrong, stays outside and doesnt bark to come back inside.

I really dont think he would hurt her. I think he is just getting annoyed with her and adjusting to the fact that she is mobile. But I'd like to make sure I'm addressing this issue correctly.

I'd love to hear if you had issues, what you did. IF it ever advanced to anything else.


-I've set the rule that if he is on his bed in the living room, she can not touch him. I feel he needs his own space, where he can relax.
-I've never left her alone with any of my animals at anytime.
-when he lets her touch or is nice to her, I praise him.

I'm going to stop her from touching him multiple times.
But on the other side, I dont want to live in fear. Or have the dog think he can do this.

I know you have to set the Hierarchy in the house & let the dog know he is not above the baby.

sorry so long, thanks for reading.

Re: If you had a dog when you brought home your child

You sound like you are definitely on the right track and fully informed at what should be done.

I don't usually send the dogs away when they do something I don't like, I make sure I get my voice and body language displeasure clear *immediately*. It's so important to make them connect the act with the correction within 5 seconds or less. Dogs don't associate 15 minutes in solitude with the act they did wrong, it just makes them unhappy.

I actually use the Cesar Milan CHHHHHT! sound. It's become second nature to me now and the dogs know full well what it means. If it's something REALLY bad, and I only reserve this for the worst, only then do I say NO. You need an emergency word that has a big impact.

What I mean by body language is stepping towards them or putting my hands on my hips - they know what it means. If I give a command and they don't do it, that's what I do. As soon as they do what I commanded, I praise the hell out of them. It's important to balance the negative with the positive. So when he *stops* growling, it may sound crazy, but you should praise him to let him know you're happy now.

Also keep an eye out on the dog's prized possessions. Could be his bed, toys, bones, food, whatever. He could be guarding. He's definitely warning you with the growls, and it's important to pay attention to it which you are. But equally important to find the source of it and make it "ok". Desensitize him to whatever is making him uncomfortable or change the situation so he's not put into it as often (like moving his bed so it's in a "safe zone" away from children?).

Anyway, you sound like you're doing great. Thank you for being such a diligent owner and learning about psychology and training. It gives me hope to read well-informed posts like yours.

Re: If you had a dog when you brought home your child

Posted by greenfreak

Anyway, you sound like you're doing great. Thank you for being such a diligent owner and learning about psychology and training. It gives me hope to read well-informed posts like yours.

Re: If you had a dog when you brought home your child

I have a male dog who was here first. He has some difficulty with DD, and most of it started when she started crawling and walking.

I had a trainer come in. We have to make him do a lot of commands to keep him in check. It is working but he can never be fully trusted, he just has a hard time with control and excitement. We know what kind of things he has a hard time with, and when he should be watched extra carefully. But either way, he has made tremendous progress. DD can now hug him and kiss him, most times he doesn't have a hard time with it. He does love her, he just is very excitable and bratty. And we would never get rid of him, so we just work on making him do commands to keep him in check.

Why not get a trainer in?

Message edited 4/1/2014 10:35:30 PM.

Re: If you had a dog when you brought home your child

Re: If you had a dog when you brought home your child

Re: If you had a dog when you brought home your child

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. You're saying the "chht" sound only works because he's rough with the dogs? If that's what you're saying, I disagree. It works for us and we are not rough or heavy handed. In general, we don't use our hands at all to train.

I don't agree with everything Cesar Milan does, but he does have good aspects to his training. There are a lot of different methods out there that I've educated myself on and taken bits from, I don't blindly follow only one or claim one method is perfect for all dogs and the rest of them don't work. We us a mix gathered from Cesar Milan, Victoria Stilwell, Patricia McConnell, focus on positive reinforcements more than negative corrections and the "nothing in life is free" approach. Brinkley is at a good training level with all this and Ginger... well she's a work in progress.