brittneynt14
New member
So we adopted a sweet German Shepherd from our local animal shelter. She’s 5 and beautifully obedient. She’s very sweet, she doesn’t bark, she doesn’t react to other dogs however she’s not friendly towards our outdoor cat and has an issue with our toddlers. We have 4 boys ages 7,3,2 and 5 months. She loves the baby, she’s extremely gentle with him and only interested in giving him kisses, she’s also obedient and affectionate towards our older son. She does not like our other 2 though. We do not leave her alone with any of our children and our boys know not to approach her but to let her approach them. The issue is that they will be doing next to nothing and she will go after them. She scratched our 3yo in the face when he was getting down out of his chair and nipped our 2yo as he was getting on the couch. She was about 4ft from them when both of these incidents happened. Luckily they don’t have real injuries, the scratch was just red for a couple hours and went away and the nip left a small indent that also went away. She is not aggressive in the slightest towards my husband or I. She has lunged and fought with the cat twice, both also not sustained any injuries. Our cat is very protective and I do believe that she was in the instigator in the second incident but the first incident was isolated, they both reacted out of surprise. Overall I don’t plan to have them near each other considering she is an outside cat and only comes around us for pets or when she wants a treat.
My question is, is she going to be able to be trained to handle our children? I know some dogs just cannot handle kids at all but I do not want to give up on her. She’s our family and we love her and I’m willing to put in the work to train her. I’ve thought about crate training and muzzle training to get her accustomed but I’m open to other advice or what she would best respond to.
I’d also like to add that I asked a ton of questions before we adopted to begin with. We were looking for a well tempered, laid back and loyal dog that was good with children and they recommended our girl. I took my oldest with me to meet her and they got on just fine and I repeatedly asked if she would be okay with babies and toddlers and they said yes.
My question is, is she going to be able to be trained to handle our children? I know some dogs just cannot handle kids at all but I do not want to give up on her. She’s our family and we love her and I’m willing to put in the work to train her. I’ve thought about crate training and muzzle training to get her accustomed but I’m open to other advice or what she would best respond to.
I’d also like to add that I asked a ton of questions before we adopted to begin with. We were looking for a well tempered, laid back and loyal dog that was good with children and they recommended our girl. I took my oldest with me to meet her and they got on just fine and I repeatedly asked if she would be okay with babies and toddlers and they said yes.