My dog bit my 7 year old sister

[mariewalter]

@fragment We have, it was really just the youngest that was still learning. Apparently (I asked my sister again when she woke up today) she had heard Luna growl at her to get away, and said it was her own fault for not moving away from her. I told her it wasn’t anyones fault, and that she should pay more attention to that kinda thing but that Luna didn’t mean to hurt her. Idk if her not meaning it is true or not, but I thought it would help her feel better in the moment. Thanks though

 

[sothern1]

@mariewalter

"... but immediately knew she did something wrong before my sister even realized what happened and the pain set in, backing away and whimpering. She was frazzled too later, acting very lovey to me and sad, not wanting to play at all and licking me a lot."

The dog doesn't "know she did something wrong". She is simply reacting to the behavior of the humans around her. All the fuss over your sister startled her and she retreated to you for comfort.

Anyway, this is a problem. Not a terrible unfixable problem, but it is something you are going to have to work with.

• Luna doesn't know bite inhibition. Dogs learn this from their mother between 8 and 12 weeks old. Since many puppies are sold at 8 weeks, they never get the training. A dog should know how to both play and warn using their mouth, but without applying any destructive pressure. Luna doesn't have that skill. The only way she knows how to use her mouth socially is to bite full force. That means a misunderstanding (like with your sister) can mean someone can be hurt.
• "Being territorial" with food or toys is another danger. If a dog will become aggressive when they have food or a toy, then you have to either monitor them when they have these things, or just not give them anything unsupervised. Even then, you still have a risk of something happening when you are not looking or before you recognize the warning signs.

None of these make Luna a bad dog - she doesn't want to hurt people. But her habits around biting and toys still make her dangerous.

 

[mariewalter]

@sothern1 Yes, the territorial-ness is what I have told my mother we need to find someone for, as previously we thought the bite inhibition training was working. Clearly not thought and we need to do more research and probably professional training for it now

 

[shotaro]

@mariewalter I think you’ve had plenty of legal advice about this so I won’t add to it.

However I would advise getting a dog trainer as soon as you can to deal with your dogs resource guarding. At nine months old it should be possible to rectify this issue with your pup before it gets to become a permanent fixture in her personality. It’s super important that you are able to remove things from your dogs mouth because a time may come when she has something that could potentially harm her.

As far as the child is concerned- kids should not get their face close to dogs faces. Often it is the case that by the time a dog has bitten a child the dog has tried to communicate multiple times that it is uncomfortable with how the child is behaving/encroaching on their personal space, but these signs have been consistently ignored and missed by the child and all the adults around. At this point I would discourage your sister from initiating any interaction with the dog and allow the dog to come to her. Absolutely no entering the dog’s space, especially when she’s eating or playing with a toy.

 

[mariewalter]

@shotaro Yeah I thought about this a lot, especially because of how my sister knows what to look for now head on, rather than us just telling her what she should do. A dog trainer is a good idea though, currently we only have one for normal training, but behavioral specific one is a good step now I think

 

[shotaro]

@mariewalter Yes a good dog trainer is a god send. I have two rescue dogs and I honestly don’t have a clue where I would be without a dog trainer for either of them. It’s taken me from a place where I had so many issues to deal with that I could tear my hair out, to a point where I have two well behaved and normal dogs. Your pup sounds like she just needs to learn not to be possessive over toys. It takes consistent work but with the right guidance, given her age, I’m sure it will be totally achievable.