kids excited him!

kgzehoviak · #1 09-22-2008, 03:46 PM

We have a 16 week old boxer, Santo. Whenever little kids come up to him, he of course gets very excited. He still nips once in a while so we have to be careful when our neighbor kids come around. Any suggestions on how to get him used to kids, and a way to approach this? We don't have children so he isn't around them a whole lot.

Caney Creek · #2 09-22-2008, 07:32 PM

Just keep bringing him around kids. For a while try for mainly kids who are accustomed to big dogs. Your pup is still very young, it's going to be another few months before he's learned bite inhibition 100%, and a few months after that before he's through his worst puppy stage. He'll get it though.

Caney used to jump on kids when she was a puppy. She really never got the chance to be around kids. When she was about a year old, I was walking her through the park and we passed a family with some young kids (she hadn't seen children in quite a while) and I wondered what she would do -- she just walked right up and sniffed their faces. Didn't lick, didn't even jump. She's just as tall as them now so I guess she doesn't have to

But even with older kids she doesn't jump -- we just came in from the front yard and the neighbors' kids (elementary and middle school age) ran over to pet her, and she didn't jump at all. She is very behaved around little people!

I am honestly amazed that she seemed to just grow out of it, without a whole lot of training or exposure to children. But I'm very proud

Caney Creek · #3 09-22-2008, 07:37 PM

Another thing I might add -- BF and I have always made a point to touch Caney all over, poke and prod if you will. So even though she hasn't spent a lot of time with children, she's used to being handled.

TwoDogs · #4 10-14-2008, 02:54 PM

Little kids love trying to be grownups, so when my girl was a pup, if I saw a little kid that was going to approach us, I'd say "Stop! Do you want to be a dog trainer?" Then I would ask them to catch a treat. Usually I would "accidentally" throw it behind them so they had to back up which was good because it gave me a bit more time to control my pup. Then I would say "Trainers only walk slowly" and "Trainers only pet dogs on the chin" or "Trainers are quiet around dogs". Kids just want to interact with a puppy so if you give them a safe way to do it, and let them think they are doing something grown up, they will listen to you. I found that once I got the kids approaching slower and quieter, my pup did alot less pulling and jumping. I told them to only give her the treat if she was sitting and if she jumped to walk away. Jumping got her no treat and worse yet, it made the kid go away. It took awhile, but she eventually stopped jumping on them. Of course she still wiggles so much she often knocks the smaller ones around a bit, but there's no way you can train the wiggle out of a Boxer, right!?