My eight month Old F1b goldendoodle bit my five year old today

[Cherri]

My dog has started to raid our pantry if we leave the door open.  My son had just gotten a breakfast bar out that had chocolate in it, and my dog got a breakfast bar out too.  My son went to pull the bar out of my dog's mouth and my dog started ferociously growling at him and bit my son 3 times drawing blood. I do not think Bear bit as heard as he could, but it still worries me. He seems to be getting more and more aggressive.  My maltese and him seem to fight quite often and I think he sees my son as part of the pack.  Any advice?

[Lynne B]

Neither of my dogs are allowed in the kitchen. I started training them on this when they were young, but with patience you can do it at any age. When the dog enters the kitchen you stand in front of him and say "out" and you walk him out, using your body to block any movement other than toward the exit to the kitchen. When he is out praise and reward. Continue doing it. When you are in the kitchen and they try to enter it, move to them with a firm 'eh eh' and walk them out just as I described. Praise and reward when they are out. After awhile they won't try to enter the kitchen at all. My dogs can lie at the entrance to the kitchen and sometimes they try to move in further than they should, but a firm 'eh eh' followed by 'out' and they move back out. Both are completely reliable about not entering the kitchen, but they are still clever. I left two steaks on the counter, but rather than go in the kitchen, they went to the family room which is separated from the kitchen by a long counter, Beck climbed up on a barstool in the family room and jumped up to the counter so that he could get the steaks. But he never set a paw in the kitchen!

The other thing is that you are never done training! Spend 5 or 10 minutes a day training the dog, go through basic commands and then teach him a trick, dogs love it and it really pays off

[shelly]

Hi Cherri. This has been a discussion I had before. My aussiedoodle did that twice. If you look on my page, you probably will find the thread. Tori tried this just about after she turned one and then again not too long ago They do go thru' a stage where they try to push buttons and this is one of the things, I am learning that some try. I will try to post the thread. I DO know that each time she did she KNEW she was wrong and really sulked and kept to her crate on her own and even tried to snuggle up to the people she hurt. (Me and my M-I-L). Also - DON"T try to snatch anything away. This only forces them to react quickly in defense and instinct tells them to snap out and use their mouth. Maybe some dogs are just more mouthy than others. I can tell you that this never really happened to our dogs growing up, but one raise of the lip and my father used to use 'force' to nip that in the bud', something I DO NOT do.... Don't know if I am quite sure how to find the thread. If I can not, I will continue....

[Jessica and Jake]

My advise is to keep the 5 year old away from the dog. Mabey even keep away by a gate.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

This is an older discussion, from last January.