New 3 yr old male boxer and 11 mo. child

[mertc]

My niece just 2 days ago adopted a 3 year old boxer who has not been around children. My niece has a 6 year old daughter and and an 11 month old daughter. The boxer has seemed to be ok with the kids but last night, he was lying on the couch chewing on his bone when the 11 month old came up to him, he started growling at her. I don't know if she tried to take his bone or not but he allows their female min pin to take his bone from him any time she wants to. My niece just grabbed the baby from near the dog and told the dog "NO". What else should she have done, or should she do in the future. She was hoping that the boxer would bond with the girls and become their "protector".

[gmacleod]

There's not a lot wrong or unusual about what the dog did - and actually, it's a good thing that he gave a warning growl. Now OK, I'm sure that ideally your niece would prefer that the dog not mind in the slightest the possibility of an 11 month old baby crawling over him and his bone. But this is the real world, and it's a rare dog on this planet that's going to be relaxed about that. It is a GOOD thing that he growled, and that willingness to warn shouldn't be supressed. Imagine if he didn't warn at all, but just "suddenly" bit after he'd been crawled on for a minute? Better NOT to suppress the warnings, but rather to pay heed to them (they are, after all, quite reasonable - the dog is just asking for a bit of peace and quiet to enjoy his bone).

Since young children are not, of course, capable of understanding and heeding warnings like that though, the ultimate answer is to give the dog his bone at a time and place where he's not going to be bothered by infants. And to supervise closely infants around the dog, most especially if he does have a bone or other toy. Don't let them bother the dog.

[K8IE]

I totally agree with Gmacleod. Dogs need a safe place to chew a bone or nap where they know that they will not be bothered, and parents have to reinforce that, and teach little ones what they can and cannot do to a dog. The way I see it is that even if you have a "perfect" dog that would allow a child to take something away from it, or bother it while it is resting, what if they start to think that is OK and one day do it to the WRONG dog? I think it is best to just teach children from the very beginning that they need to "let sleeping dogs lie" and never to take a food item or toy away from a dog, never squeeze a dog around the neck, climb or sit on a dog, or tug on it's collar. Even the sweetest dogs will only take so much before they may lose their temper if their warnings are not heeded. A good friend of mine had allowed her daughter to pester their old dog to that point, and she was bitten on the face.