Nasty lgd?

[cassie]

Woah! No! No! No! I should of explained, first of all, the one who I said "kicks my dog" is only 2 years old! And when he does he's just playing! he does it VERY lightly, or if they're both laying down together, he'll just lightly push her with his feet. This is a 2 year old! He doesn't have enough strength to hurt her! and when I said I smacked the dog, I just very camly tap her on the head and say "No!" Sorry, I didn't realize the words I used meant more than what I was really talking about. We have 2 horses, 10 chickens, and 10 acres. She has plenty of space to roam. I guess I didn't realize Lgd's weren't meant for pets. I'm not abusive to the dog, we let her in and the kids sleep with her at night. We love her very much and would hate to get rid of her. But she does jump on my min pin and bite her.
Sorry I didn't mean to sound nasty, I just want you all to understand that 2 year olds think that kicking the dog is just a way of playing, not abuse. She is great with the kids but can get a little growly or annoyed sometimes

 

[Peaches Lee]

I would re-home this dog with an experienced LGD person.

 

[EvansMeXo]

Woah! No! No! No! I should of explained, first of all, the one who I said "kicks my dog" is only 2 years old! And when he does he's just playing! he does it VERY lightly, or if they're both laying down together, he'll just lightly push her with his feet. This is a 2 year old! He doesn't have enough strength to hurt her! and when I said I smacked the dog, I just very camly tap her on the head and say "No!" Sorry, I didn't realize the words I used meant more than what I was really talking about. We have 2 horses, 10 chickens, and 10 acres. She has plenty of space to roam. I guess I didn't realize Lgd's weren't meant for pets. I'm not abusive to the dog, we let her in and the kids sleep with her at night. We love her very much and would hate to get rid of her. But she does jump on my min pin and bite her.
Sorry I didn't mean to sound nasty, I just want you all to understand that 2 year olds think that kicking the dog is just a way of playing, not abuse. She is great with the kids but can get a little growly or annoyed sometimes

We got our puppy just before my twins turned two and they’ve never hit/kicked/or pulled on the dog. I’ve made sure to stress the issue of nice touches and how to properly pet the dog. If they started getting rough they weren’t allowed near the puppy. For the first few months the puppy was always on a leash attached to me to stop him from jumping on the counter or being bad. He’s a pitt/mastiff mix and over 100lbs he has great manners and my twins who are now almost 3 (I just realized it’s been almost exactly a year now since we adopted him) we’ve never had an issue with him. He’s never growled at them. They can play with his food while Hes eating (I’ve never encouraged that and tell them not too but over the last year they’ve snuck by) they are the ones who feed him. I want him to know they only put yummy things in his bowl that they don’t take away (I read About this method online and it seems to have worked). But he just has such a perfect family dog temperament my kids can play with him and he just lays there soaking it all up and at a year old he’s still considered a puppy so I’m surprised at how well mannered he is. So my very unprofessional opinion is that maybe your puppy is just not meant for the family life, she may be better suited for a working life if your having such aggression issues at 4months! I would consider returning to the breeder and asking for a future puppy that may have a better temperament or considering a different breed! At the very least I think you need a professional trainer. With such a young child you don’t want to risk having an aggressive dog you can’t trust to be with your kids.

 

[cassie]

I will admit I am very judgmental on this sort of thing. Very. There are just a few things I am judgmental about, but this is definitely one of them. Back in the Dark Ages when I grew up there were three rules, rather more like commandments, we were required to abide by and these rules were not negotiable. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. One rule was we were not to kick, hit, tease, pull ears hair or tails, or otherwise annoy animals. Ever. The other two rules had to do with guns and matches. We knew these things, if not by the time we could walk, certainly by the time we were 18 months of age. My attitude is that if I could learn these rules, any kid can. For his own safety, your child needs to learn these things, too and the sooner the better. I am sorry it looks like I came down on you like a ton of bricks, but I saw a number of red flags in your post and I was trying to alert you to them and give some suggestions on what to do about them before the situation gets out of hand.

 

[lazy gardener]

No child of any age should ever be allowed to hit or kick or make any threatening move towards a dog. IMO, this is too much dog for you in your current situation, and I suggest that you re-home him. This dog requires proper training, including dealing with food and toy aggression. That he is growling at all says that his boundaries about where he belongs in his "pack" are blurred. Until you know how to train a dog, especially with youngsters around, this is a recipe for disaster.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Yea, X2 on what Cassie said. I'm also very firm on how to handle dogs. My mom had rules like that about the dogs too. She always reminded us that they were wild animals at heart and if you treat them wrong they WILL bite back. I don't know how old I was when I learned that but it was told to me my whole life and to my older sisters for theirs as far back as any of us can remember.

Big dogs mean big amounts of work. An LGD can do well in a pet home but they need a LOT of work. Training, socializing, and lots and lots of exercise. But you need to learn how to train a dog before you get anything big or with a strong will. Even a Jack Russel will shred a child if provoked. And LGDs are both. :X

You could probably crash-course it but it will take a lot of time, energy, and money in toys and training from you and everyone in the household if you wanna keep that dog in your home safely. It can happen. But it's as much work as raising a human child for a while. But 100lbs heavier with sharp teeth. It's work.

 

[Kusanar]

I would like to share how I got my dog. He is a Chaweenie, looks a lot like a min pin. My brother, his wife, and their 2 small kids got him for christmas one year when he was just barely old enough to go to a new home, they treated him much as you do your puppy, but he was a lot smaller, the kids "played" with him much the same as yours does with your dog.

By the time he was a year old, any time anyone approched him, he would raise his hackles and snarl, he would try to run away, but if you cornered him even by accident, he would lunge at you and bite. He was worst with strangers but he had bitten the wife and the kids several times.

They contacted the shelter that they got him from, a local no kill organization and asked if they could bring him back because he wasn't suited for their family. They were informed that the shelter could not even attempt to re-home a known biting dog for liability reasons and that he would likely be kept in a cage in the back of the building for up to 6 months before being put down.

They made the decision to put him down themselves to keep him from being locked in a box before being killed eventually anyway. They made an appointment for the following Wednesday with the same "no kill" shelter that they had originally gotten him from.

Luckily for him, the wife put their decision on FB and I saw it, being insane and having a thing for animals that hate people for various reasons, I contacted her and told her that I wanted him. I picked him up 3 days before he was to be put down.

The first day I had him, he managed to squirm out of the badly fitting harness that they had him in and when I had to jump at him to catch him (we were outside and no fences) he bit me badly enough to break skin.

I could not even touch him for the first week, and could not approach him for at least 2 weeks without him snarling. It took probably a month before he didn't cringe when I tried to touch him, and over a year before a stranger could touch him without him snarling or cringing away.

He is a small lap dog, they tend to be afraid, a LGD will get more violent and not be aftaid, they are ANGRY about their treatment. Just think about my dog and that yours could very easily get worse and yours will have the power to actually kill

 

[Zoomie]

@ChickenFarmer4life: I want to reassure you that if you rehome this dog, you will be far from the first who has not been able to have a LGD as a housepet. In fact my neighbor across the street had to take her daughter's dog for the same reasons: the dog was growling at the grandchildren, and had even started knocking them down. The daughter had thought, oh, this dog will guard my children, but it is really a lot of hard work to train these dogs, and they did not have the know-how or the time. The dog simply got out of hand. I know it's not your fault; I wanted you to know that the dog across the street now lives in a 1 acre fenced yard, is out pretty much all the time which makes the dog much happier, and has a much better life. This could become true for your dog too.

 

[cassie]

There has been a lot of good advice on this thread. I have to agree with others that the best option for you and the dog is to rehome her. It would be better for all involved to do this sooner rather than later. LGD's are wonderful dogs, BUT, and this is a big but, they are definitely not for everyone. They need an experienced handler. They are big, they are independent thinkers, and they can be a handful. As I said, I used to raise Komondors. I loved them but I don't think I would have even considered trying to raise one if I had small children. As things are, in your situation, you have a recipe for disaster.

 

[Krazyquilts]

I needed an adult, trained LGD to guard poultry so we paid a lot of money for a male Maremma, so I haven't raised an LGD from a puppy but I'm sure that I will have to start thinking about it soon since trained adult LDGs are very difficult to find and very expensive. But I've done a lot of reading about LGDs and one thing that comes up over and over is, "No babies with babies," meaning no puppies with young livestock - lambs, chicks, etc - only adult dogs with young livestock and puppies in with only adult livestock. Puppies are still learning and can too easily injure a fragile young animal, whether by playing or being territorial. I would think that the same would apply with LGDs and humans: No babies (puppies) with babies. And a two year old child is still a baby.