What would you do?

[ryandog]

It’s long, I’ll put a TL;DR at the end

Backstory: adopted a now 4yr old Blue Heeler back in January 2022. We are his 6th home in his 4 years of life. We are experienced dog owners with two other cattle dogs and large acreage. We also have two kids (4.5 and 8months). This dog, Sarge, had done well settling in and we were happy with him.

He has reasonable manners, but no stay. He is underfoot a lot. He barks a lot, and is aggressive towards strangers. He also doesn’t much like my husband and has bitten him (never broken skin) several times, usually when my husband is rough housing with our older boy. He doesn’t know how to play at all, but one of the other dogs doesn’t mind wrestling with him to blow off steam. He gets very stressed when I leave him behind, and most recently he tore up a corner of the house when we left him at home with the other dogs for the day.

I could accept all of this until a few days ago. My older son was running around the house, and he crashed into the dog. The dog nipped him in the ribs. Didn’t break the skin or make a mark, but it was teeth first and questions later. We talked with our son about his part in the situation, but the fact remains that a dog in our home needs to deal with children appropriately - the other two either join in the running around or find a place to be out of the way. They growl and move away if he becomes a problem for them and we intervene.

The following day my son and Sarge had another collision. This time the dog growled and barked at him, which I take as an improvement, but I have lost a lot of trust in the dog.

My husband thinks we can work with him and get his issues under control. But my husband is gone for work a lot and the dog is bonded with me - with two small kids and a business to run, I don’t have a lot of capacity to spend time fixing this dog. I’m doing what I can when I can. I like him a lot, he’s very loving with me. It’s clear he had a rough start and wasn’t given the tools he needs to function well. I don’t blame him for his issues.

But I don’t know if I can live with him knowing that he put his teeth on my child. I don’t know that it would be fair to rehome him again, and I would have to disclose his bite history. The local shelter would likely euthanize him. If he’s got to be put down, I’d rather it was under my supervision than abandoned at the shelter.

Would you give this dog another shot, and if so, what’s the next step, training wise? Local professional trainers use e collars and prong collars, and I’m not sure he’d respond well to that.

Or is choosing a quiet end the best and kindest thing to do for him? I’m open to all advice.

TL;DR - my neurotic 4yr old rescue dog nipped at my son and has a host of other behaviour issues. Should I try to work with him, and if so, how? Or should I put him down?

 

[paulx2016]

@ryandog I think before taking the second option, I'd be reducing this dogs choices a mighty lot.

I would close down areas in the home where he cannot be supervised directly.

I would introduce him to a play-pen much like what children have. I would train him to have a basket where he can chill and overall, generally put in a lot of work with this dog.

Training for a dog like this is absolutely essential - because of his history. But training sessions generally only need to be a few minutes long a few times a day. Short, calm, successful training is far, far preferrable than long, exhausting and often frustrating sessions.

Use highly rewarding treats if he is treat motivated. If not, find a toy that he is obsessed with like a ball, tug rope or whatever. Use that as his 'treat'.

Consider learning and using a 'marker' word for training purposes. It will help the dog to understand and know when it is doing the right thing and at the moment I think this dog is probably really confused about what is expected of him. Using a marker word (I use Yes!) Will help keep training sessions on track and build the dogs confidence about his new home and humans. Take a look at Kikopup or Zak George for training ideas with marker words/clickers and calming and introducing untrained and rehomed dogs into a new home. It can be done and often these dogs are the most loyal and devoted dogs one will ever meet.

In respect to his eating the house whilst you are away, I would crate train him in a secure outside area where he can settle out of the weather etc. If he is not crate trained then I would start straight away for both outside and inside crates.

Crate training is a slow, progressive training regime that ultimately will provide this dog with a chill out area, allow you to control him when his environment is not under your control - like when the children are running around being noisy and possibly triggering his behaviour and you cannot observe and supervise the dog with the children.

You must always put the safety of the children first obviously but supervised 'play' between the children and the dog must happen too and as the children grow and the dog settles in, you will see if the dog understands the happy noises and behaviour of your children and how he responds. Be mindful though that the dog may be interpreting children's happy and unhappy noise as distress and fast movements always spike a dogs interest.

With the children - definitely do not trust this dog but I do agree that the second warning bark is an improvement on the first incident. I think talking to your older child was really good too but knowing you have the younger one coming along as well, there will need to be a lot of training on both the dog and your children's side.

In terms of that training - have you tried getting the dog to a better relationship with those children? Training such as sitting quietly with the dog with one child - have the dog lay-down or at least into a settled position and with one hand treat the dog and with the other gently stroke it's leg from the shoulder down. If the dog accepts the treat, continue if the dog moves away, lure back and into the relaxed position and try again. Once you have accomplished this with the dog, have your child do the patting (and remember this is a very quiet, calm training session). Keep the training short, successful and calm. As you did, train your child to hand the treat to the dog whilst patting or stroking it gently in a non-threatening area like the shoulder, along the dogs back - but never near the face.

Train your children that they must never touch the dogs face or tail - these are areas that should be off limits until this dog thoroughly settles in and the children know more about this dog and vice versa.

Train your children that they must slow down around this dog, stay calm and be gentle. (As they should be with all animals really). That includes yelling and waving their arms and hands because this dog may still be highly attracted to noise and fast movements and possibly not understand that this is normal human stuff.

Will this dog retrieve? If so, a quick session of retrieve or Frizbee will also help him to settle in. Perhapshave the children interact by throwing the ball a short distance if possible and as they grow older.

This dog probably needs a long, long, probation session with a number of positive training and play regimes in place each day so you can watch and learn the true basic nature of this dog. I am hoping with time you will see that this dog will be very loyal and reliable but due again, to its history - that settling in time will need to be carefully arranged, supervised.

It sounds like you have a lot on your hands with the children and the business, so placing restrictions on this dog going forward so you can concentrate on what you should be doing is important. At the same time, reducing this dogs choices will lower his anxiety substantially and also give him time out from a busy house-hold that may be overwhelming his threshold. If given the right training and supervision this dog may well make it in your home because you have other dogs, children and a willingness to help the dog to settle.

Good luck - I hope you do well with this dog.

 

[ryandog]

@paulx2016 Thank you, this is a really helpful reply. I did buy the training guide attached to this sub and have started using “Yes” as a marker word for him. He seems to understand “No” and sometimes the only way to direct him to the right answer seems to be to tell him “no” to whatever he’s doing that isn’t right. I’m making a bigger effort to reinforce the “yes”, though.

I like how you describe reducing his choices. He came from his previous home with a crate which was too small for him, he had mobility issues as a result, so we ditched the crate after a while and he just has a blanket pile bed, but do you think he would prefer the security of a crate? I can source a bigger one for him. I guess we thought he would enjoy having some freedom (he was crated all the time at his old home, and not exercised much), but perhaps that’s overwhelming now that the baby is mobile and the boy is bigger.

I have been watching him closely the last couple of days and he seems apologetic almost. He is very calm around the kids, but normally avoids letting them touch him. I will work with him (and the kids) on that. He has an ok relationship with the older boy, the nip was literally the first incident of concerning behaviour between them - it kind of surprised us all, including the dog!

He was doing so well for the last 10 months, it felt like a big backward step, but maybe I’m expecting too much. How long can it take??

 

[agustinus555]

@ryandog I would think if you let dog
Settle in longer things will calm down. He’s been in so many homes in such a short time. Very hard on him.

But also his breed is teeth first ask questions later. Always. As ours has had less stress in her life she bites much less. But when things were tense around here she was very nippy.

 

[ryandog]

@agustinus555 I understand the breed is designed to default to the teeth. I actually wish we had some cows for him to work, so that he has a decent outlet for his mouthy instincts, but cows are a few years out.