Psycho Thora meets toddler....

[Tuff Love]

First off... let me say I tried like heck to expose Thora to youngsters when she was a pup, but due to lack of children available, we struck out. She only ever met one toddler, and that was the weekend we got her and said toddler was terrified of her and wouldn't go near her. At that time Thora acted like she did to everyone else... a roughhousing 8 week old pup nipping and charging at everything. I tried to encourage more positive behavior because I didn't want this to be an issue in the future, but at 8 weeks old, that was sorta useless. Well, now 7 months old, Thora finally got another shot with my friend's 3 year old... and boy was it a disaster I was worried from the start because of her lack of exposure to young children, in addition to her already bad manners which we have been working on since puppyhood. All Thora wanted to do was charge and bark at the poor little girl. I had her on a leash to restrain her and tried to entice her to calm down with treats, which failed. The little girl was scared of her of course, which probably didn't help (but who could blame her?). I ended up having to put Thora in her crate because I couldn't get her to calm down for the life of me. Once she got calm I would give the little girl a cookie to give Thora in the crate, while watching very closely. Thora took the cookies, but then when the little girl would just walk by the crate, she would charge at the gate and freak out again.... further scaring the little girl. Now, I realize that desensitizing Thora to children will take lots and lots of exposure, but does anyone have any tips on how I can best handle this kind of behavior? Her behavior otherwise is not that great to begin with and we have been trying to help her improve but are just failing miserably. How can I get my girl to act like a little lady in the presence of company, and more importantly- children?
The biggest obstacle here is I have very little resources to help with the training (and by that I mean children). We've been trying a new approach lately because she gets bossy and out of control even with just us. When she gets mouthy, I put her short leash on her in the house and then she pouts and calms down. Once she's been calm for a while I remove it. It works pretty well in the house with just us and no distractions, but everything changes when an outside stimulus is introduced to the picture... another person, animal, whatever.

[CrazyCharlie]

Well, its really a bummer that you don't have more children at your disposal. Charlie has been around Children from day one, the people I got him from had several children and all of them a different age. So when I brought him home to my 1yr old niece he was perfect. and he still is. Poor Charlie the things he puts up with... lol

As for Thora, are there any parks in your area that allow dogs (not dog parks)? Or maybe take Thora to some training classes, you may be able to find some people (meeting new people YAY! lol) who are willing to help you with Thora. I would try older children first and work your way down since she is so crazy/overwhelmed.

Also, she should have a HUGE work out before you try any of the children introducing, then she will be exhausted and a bit more calm and maybe that will help her to realize that kids are small and not play things, but cuddle things.

I hope you get it all worked out! Silly boxer puppies.

[Tuff Love]

Originally Posted by CrazyCharlie

Well, its really a bummer that you don't have more children at your disposal. Charlie has been around Children from day one, the people I got him from had several children and all of them a different age. So when I brought him home to my 1yr old niece he was perfect. and he still is. Poor Charlie the things he puts up with... lol

As for Thora, are there any parks in your area that allow dogs (not dog parks)? Or maybe take Thora to some training classes, you may be able to find some people (meeting new people YAY! lol) who are willing to help you with Thora. I would try older children first and work your way down since she is so crazy/overwhelmed.

Also, she should have a HUGE work out before you try any of the children introducing, then she will be exhausted and a bit more calm and maybe that will help her to realize that kids are small and not play things, but cuddle things.

I hope you get it all worked out! Silly boxer puppies.

As soon as we are done with all this house stuff and moving we are definitely either enrolling her in a class or getting a trainer. We;ve been too busy lately to commit to any one day of the week with a trainer or class. She may need a lot of 1 on 1 time to address her specific issues, so Im leaning towards trainer. In the meantime it's up to us. We failed twice at enrolling her in puppy KG. When she was 10 weeks old she got sick and due to a parvo scare we had to keep her away from other dogs to be safe, but I was still taking her everywhere with me to help with her socialization. It took her over a month until she got all better. I enrolled her in puppy KG twice and both times the classes were cancelled due to lack of sign ups. By that time she was already 4 months old and outside the puppy KG bracket for most of the classes around here. So she lost out on a crucial opportunity there. In addition, the shortage of kids available to us is a huge disadvantage. I only have one close friend with a toddler and it's hard for us to get together since she got a new job. The household Thora came from had 2 kids, but they were much older... if I had to guess I'd say 12 and 15... hardly the same, in her eyes, as a toddler. I know that I need to make the experiences she has with young kids as positive as possible, but it's difficult when she lunges at them and they get scared by either her crazy behavior or madd barking. As for the exercise, she definitely needs more. We live in a sketchy neighborhood and I wont walk her here, so we have to take trips to the Parkway for her to get adequate exercise, and it's been so rainy/muddy since August that we haven't had as many days out as we'd like. We're hoping to close on this house in the next few weeks. So with the new house being in a much more friendly neighborhood, I will be able to take her out for nice long walks to help her burn off some of that pent up energy. Hopefully that will help a little with our training. it's pretty hard to wear her out though haha.

[chrystel]

Well.. at least you have a friend with a 3 year old toddler.. this could be a GREAT help!

Do you think you could ask your friend to meet at a park once a week? Like for a saturday late morning coffee? Toddler, mom, you and Thora could just walk. Walk along with a kid is to me the best as it come to interaction for the beginning.

Also, to teach her to lower the head, drop the treats at the feet of the toddler.

You could walk behind the mom and kid duo, or besides...

Also, do you have a park where kids play on a play ground. You could sit a distance where Thora doesn't react, just looks. With a huge KONG full of peanut butter and stuff. When she is done with the kong.. just go home.

Little by little, get closer to the kid park...

I know how hard it is. I don't have kids around me either. I am just so glad i live in an apartment complex, so at least my two boys saw kids running around since they were puppies.

But at first, Sancth was terrified of african american kids.. how embarassing! he wouldn't let that one little girl pet him.. so she looked at me and wa slike "is it because i'm black?" ugh!!!!! I fell so bad!!! But the I told her to come walk him with me. She was oh so proud to have a new friend, and Snatch ended up loving her!

Oxford was afraid of kids.. until Zach. He is one of our neighbour. He was 7 when Ox was a puppy. Now Zach is 11 and Oxy can recognize him from a mile away! I don't know what it is about Zach (who is african american too).. but Oxford fell in love with him!

[elgerdes]

Personally, I don't have much experience with your problem. Our godson is just over 1yr so Zoe is pretty exposed. But for a while there Zoe was terrified of little girls (like 6yrs and younger) We were pretty sure it was because of their higher pitch voices and how they love to squeal "PUPPPPYYYYY!" She has since become a lot better

But I know for me, I live right next door to an in-home daycare. The lady is super nice, and has dogs of her own. he said if I wanted to work on exposure to kids I could bring Zoe over for a bit. Obv starting with the older kids and then graduating to the little tykes. I don't know if you have a willing neighbor or someone in the area who could do the same? Start in a quiet room with an older kid (you there to supervise of course)?

[Tuff Love]

Great suggestions in here, thank you! My friend with the 3 year old is about to go on second shift unfortunately, so I'll have to try to hook up with her more on weekends if she's available. We both have had wacky schedules due to big life changes recently, so I've hardly seen her since we got Thora unfortunately. Also, with the cold weather approaching, my chances of catching a bunch of kids at play at the park are a little grim, but I'm going to give it a shot! Hopefully there is a park close by to our new potential home... I haven't actually checked. It makes perfect sense that the high pitched voices and different mannerisms of small children could spook a dog. This particular toddler wasn't saying much at all, but I could tell from the first look Thora gave her that she was thinking "what in the heck is THAT new thing?!!" It's funny how you can sometimes read a dog's expression so clearly with just a look haha. Clearly I need to get her more exposure to children somehow, someway.. and I think you guys have some great points. Starting from a distance is probably a great approach. Now I just have to find some kids! ...and hope their parents don't think I'm a superfreak for lurking with my dog lol. I wonder if there's anything else I can do in my home to help her with this problem? Something I can do when I can't get her near kids. As a 7 month old pup, her attention span is only so wide and her listening skills aren't 100%.

[Stub]

How about something like youtube videos of children playing, yelling and squealing? That might help acclimate her to the sounds a little. Gus hasn't got a lot of exposure to children either since my brother thinks all animals are dirty and full of germs, but he has met my niece and nephew (5 and 3) a few times and was carried around by them as a baby so he seems fairly calm with children, although I am very careful when he meets any to control his rambunctiousness.

[Tuff Love]

It's worth a shot! We're closing on a house next week, so this next month is going to be super busy. As soon as we're all settled I hope to tackle this issue head on.. and others. Still, it stinks that we're headed into snow season, so the abundance of outside children will be few :/

[whiskers]

Along with trying to visit parks, if there are any schools nearby you could potentially hang out around the time school lets out? You don't necessarily have to creep around lol but if there is a sidewalk nearby you could walk on.

Heading into winter definitely decreases the opportunities though. I'm lucky that my mom does daycare, and I have nieces and nephews, so Juno has had very few days in her life where she wasn't surrounded by kids.