Is Taquito destined to live with another family member?

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

In light of the recent discussions about vicious dogs (and Joanne's "Does Size Matter" discussion) and recent encounters in my personal life, I am starting to worry about Taquito.  I know he is a non-dood, but I have some questions.

How can I go ahead and start having him associate babies/toddlers with positive reinforcement?

He is good most of the time, but he will definitely snap at a child if he/she comes up quickly and if Taquito is near me or DH (you know these little dogs are territorial). 

This weekend he snapped at my college roommate's 1 year old, who came too close too fast. We were sitting there (he was next to DH) and pulled him away.

3 years ago, pre-Peri, we were at in-laws for xmas.  Their then 2-year old kept coming up to T. and poking him, pulling on ears, etc...I told her to be gentle and they never did anything to help keep her calm.  He ended up nipping her on the nose (no blood at all, not even a mark).  Since then, they are good about teaching the kids to be gentle and 95% of the time all-around (not just with these kids), T. is totally fine, no growling even. 

 

But I am worried.  I am worried because we are probably going to expand our family soon with a human child and this makes me so nervous.  Mainly because I DO NOT WANT TO BE THAT PERSON WHO HAS THEIR DOG GO LIVE WITH ANOTHER FAMILY MEMBER ONCE THEY HAVE A HUMAN CHILD.  I know for 1000000% certainty my sister would take him, so it's not like I would be really re-homing.

However, to me, this is not an option.

If you were me, would you go ahead and work with a trainer?  Peri's is also a behaviorist (for what that means) and I really like her.  How do you train though if I don't have kids yet?

Help.  The issue has really never come up until recently. For the first 6 years of his life, I was not even thinking about kids myself (yet) and none of my friends had kids. Now almost all do and it is becoming a reality that T. hates kids.

Peri is totally different. She gives all children tongue baths and cannot keep her paws off of them.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

PS: I know I may be putting the cart before the horse, but DH said yesterday (when T. snapped at toddler) "Taquito you will go live with your grandparents if you do that to our kids".  WTD?  Never thought I would hear that one.

[Adina P]

Not to be a downer, but you might feel differently when it's your child.  Seriously you will be the BIGGEST MOMMA BEAR about your child.  You will experience more love and desire to protect than you thought possible.

 

That said, I don't think it's impossible to manage T and a child, but it won't be easy.  You know that old saying: "The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior" -- I think without the right training it's VERY true for dogs too. Really, it's inevitable that a crawling baby or walking toddler WILL at some point, given the chance, act inappropriately toward Taquito.  Kids of a certain age range simply don't have that much self-control no matter how good you are at teaching them.  They will be inappropriate if they have the ability to crawl to/walk to a dog. Because even if they are TRYING to be appropriate they will do it wrong.  They can't think in the abstract about appropriateness. 

 

There might be a lot of management involved and a lot of constant separation.  Yes all dogs and kids need to be supervised, but it makes it awfully difficult if you can't leave the room for any length of time and have to corral and gate every time you go around a corner.  But that might be necessary. 

 

I also think it is more than just creating a positive association with kids--he's had 6 years to develop a very strong aversion toward them and has found that nipping gets them to go away.  Those are strong impressions in T's mind.  I think the right training will include training that convinces him it is NEVER okay to put teeth on a child and that he should ignore them and that you will have to do the 'keeping him safe' part--NOT him.  But I can't tell you how that would work.

 

Talk to your trainer and see what she says and if she is experienced with something like this.  Get second opinions if needed ... some trainers don't think some things can be worked through.  Others can. 

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I agree that I will be more of a momma bear.  I just wouldn't want to have to make a decision like this. I am going to talk to Peri's trainer and get her advice.

Any other tips are appreciated.......

At least Peri is okay.

[Adina P]

I emailed my trainer for her thoughts.  Her opinion is simply that some dogs just don't like kids and while you can't make them like kids a concerted effort in obedience training and then working that obedience around kids as much as possible would help.   To see if via obedience his tolerance might go up when he gets more experience and is not allowed to aggress. (it doesn't sound like T is a natural kid hater...just that he feels threatened by them and doesn't like their pushy intrusive puppy-like nature)

 

She also thought it was fine for kids to feed him treats, pet him on stays, etc...but NOT UNTIL he has demonstrated he won't bite without a very good reason (and you see that via a concerted effort in working him in obedience around kids that are NOT approaching him.  Just having kids toss him treats or treating him around kids probably won't yield anywhere near the same results when he feels threatened.  What he needs is to have enough respect for you to obey you if you tell him to "knock it off." 

But the first step would be to put some obedience into him and bring him around kids a lot more often to see if he can't soften his attitude a bit. And you should do this work with a trainer. If he doesn't improve then she thinks it would be a pretty bad idea to have the dog live with a child without some pretty solid management plans in place in terms of keeping an accident from happening.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Thank you Adina.  I have an email into Peri's trainer. I think I will just do my best to have him around kids as much as possible. When he was with us for xmas at my inlaws (same neice he nipped a few years back), he was fine. He hid out and if they approached him, I was always there and told them to be gentle and they were.  He didn't even let a growl out.  So I don't think this is something unfixable OR unmanageable.

Last Thanksgiving, he was around kids the entire time - 3yo and 6 yo and he let them carry him around.  But they never rushed up on him and they are very smart savvy girls that knew how to handle him (and we were around always).

Saturday made me scared, but I think it was because T. was up on the couch and the 1yo came out of nowhere and popped up and scared him. I don't know if he would have bit him - he was close enough to and all he did was give a warning (which is GOOD imo).

 

Will keep you posted....

[Camilla and Darwin]

I'm no expert on this, but if I was having a baby, I think I would try to keep them separated, or heavily supervised before considering rehome. Babies aren't annoying at all, and maybe the gradual change from baby to toddler will allow him to become used to a child's presence. Time to do training, positive reinforcement, etc?

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I was wondering the same thing...it might actually give him time to become protective over his new family member.  He would fight a pit bull to protect his sister Peri or us.

Good thing I am so overly anal I am already thinking about this...no not even pregnant!

[Adina P]

Definitely good to plan ahead on this!

[Tina, Clover, Plus 5 More]

Allyson, from my experience it is different when the child is around all the time.  None of my Yorkies were used to having kids around when Lexi joined our family.  Lexi was only 4 1/2 months old at the time.  I didn't encourage Lexi to pet or play with the dogs.  For the most part Lexi didn't pay much attention to them until she was three.  There were a coule of times where one of the Yorkies gave a warning growl.  Instead of making a big deal out of it, I redirected Lexi's attention to something else and she left them alone.  One thing I did was make sure the Yorkies had a safe place to escape away from Lexi.  When Lexi was around 5 the little dogs really started to interact with her on their own.  They will curl up next to her while she reads or watches tv.  A couple of them acted motherly and protective.  If she would cry to long, Cali would always come and let me know.  It's not impossible, just a few more precautions and most of us already have a long list.  One advantage for you is being able to work on training with Taquito before hand. 

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Nice encouragement - thanks Tina! 

[shelly]

Allyson - we had our GR about 6 years before we had our first baby.  He never really was around kids either because, well no one had kids really that came over any way... I guess it's a bit different since he never nipped anyone, but... here's what we did... we familiarized him with the 'smells' of babies... lotions, powders, and yes I even went out and bought diapers.  When our first actually was ready to arrive, I washed clothes in baby detergent, and left out the carseat, basinnet, sheets, etc so he would be able to smell them.  I NEVER left him alone in the room with the baby - not even for one second! Yeah - didn't rust him so much and also,  He was HUGE 125 pounds and I was afraid he would jump up and tip it over.

 

But as much as I LOVED him - he WAS our first baby ... if he showed signs of aggression I would have to say I would SADLY rehome him

 

Maybe carry around T's favorite treats and start with having kids toss the treat???  We all can have our opinions on what to do,.. but this is something that really needs true professional guidance - and evaluation of T's personality and behavior with kids around.

And.. it's always good to be prepared (way ahead of time!)

 

 Taquito may surprise you... T may become a teeny tiny watchdog for his own baby.  Good luck! 

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I honestly think that is what will happen. THe kicker would be if he is protective over the baby and bites/nips another kid for approaching.  We will work through it and I might just be putting him in his crate in stressful situations more often.  HE LOVES HIS CRATE and goes in every day.  It's his special spot. That's probably the best thing we can do, aside from discussing with a trainer.

Thanks all.  Shelly, great advice on the smells, etc...