Dog Community

Out-of-control Kid

Posted : 8/20/2006 2:51:52 AM

Ughhh... I just came back from my mom's and they had this barbeque going on outside her house, and since Shippo had been crated a lot today, I decided to just leash him and let him come with me (It was right there anyway). My mom introduced me to some of her neighbors, and they all loved Shippo and he got lots of attention and pettings from new people. Everything was going fine UNTIL...

This woman showed up with an out-of-control 3-year-old little girl. The girl jumped out of her stroller (she wasn't buckled in?!) and RAN up to Shippo, which of course scared him and so he started backing up. The mother distantly mumbled, "Now honey you be nice to the puppy..." as this kid started poking around on Shippo, bending over him, and being grabby. I started saying "No, don't do that," and walking away, and she followed us and kept it up! The mom was still just standing there! Shippo again got scared because she kept poking at him and crap, and I said "NO, stop doing that!" hoping the mother would hear this! All she did was say again "honey, you be careful with that puppy," and went back to a conversation she was having with a random person.

I was STILL walking away toward the house, and she started CHASING Shippo, and so at this point he was terrified of this monster kid who was after him and he ran circles around me trying to escape her. I then bent down to just pick him up and carry him home, and she CORNERED him trying to pet and poke at him some more and I said "NO, you're scaring him, he's going to BITE you!" Hoping that might ward her off. So sometime between me saying that and picking him up, she managed to get in a few more pokes to his face and he NIPPED her on the hand, she acted totally shocked and ran to her mom and told her, and she was like "Good maybe you'll leave the puppy alone now."

UGH... I'm pretty frustrated about this. That kid was totally nuts! And why the heck didn't the mother do anything! She saw and heard that I was telling her kid to knock it off! So now he's only 7 months old and he's bitten someone already. I feel like crap. I feel like I need to find some WELL-BEHAVED children to help socialize him so he doesn't grow up biting little children because of this one little girl. It's a good thing he's got good bite inhibition now though... It didn't break the skin.

What the heck do you tell a parent whose kid won't leave your dog alone? I've never had to deal with this before. >-.-<

Xebby

Posted : 8/20/2006 3:19:37 AM

Oh no, You did everything right in my openion. That mother should have keepted her kid away. Shippo only did the what he could do to get the child to stop harrasing him, heck, if some kid did that to me I would snap. You have a hearding breed and they are a bit on the snapy side (not all but it's common in the hearding breeds since thats how some move the livestock around, natural reaction to get what they want) so it's just something to watch out for with any kid that plays with them. 7 mo. is the age where their behavor develops so I completly understand your concern. I wish I could say more on what to do but I really don't know. I hope Shippo doen't use this once experience with a child to determin how every child will react to him.

corvus

Posted : 8/20/2006 3:36:37 AM

Yeah, you did the right thing. Kids that little should always be supervised around dogs, and I think supervising is the job of the owner AND the kid's nearest parent. You can only do so much with someone else's kid when the mother is right there. It always peeves me when parents ignore ratbag behaviour form kiddies. I once had a 5 year old beat me up when I was at high school because I'd inadvertently taken the seat she had been putting her feet on on the train. After 15 minutes of fending the monster off, I asked her where her mother was and she pointed to a woman who'd been sitting there watching the whole thing! Grrrrr.

My dog came to love little children from a few youngsters that used to come over to visit. They would always feed her some of their biscuits. Kids love to feed animals, and if you can be confident your dog won't snap it out of their fingers, then it's a great way to teach dogs to like kids as well. Incidentally, it all went pear when her favourite little girl poked her in the eye one day. For a bit she was a little snappy and had to be watched with the kiddies until she'd regained her confidence.

magilacudy

Posted : 8/20/2006 7:27:05 AM

I have a kid like that, well sorta, she at least does listen. My daughter loves animals so much it's really is unreal. Everytime we are out and someone is walking a dog she will go right for the dog. I get in front and stop her then I ask the person if their dog is good with children. Most of the time the people are great and do not mind my daughter trying to kiss the dog. But there was one time that a woman said "No please, I do not trust him" I was fine with that. It would not bother me at all if someone said please don't touch my dog.

I feel foolish because my daughter is always wanting to go up to strange dogs and I have to ask the person. I would rather not have to.

georgie4682

Posted : 8/20/2006 7:33:59 AM

I think that parents should be asking people if their kids should pet other dogs. You never know what type of aggression some dogs may have. I would totally trust Buster around children, but Max and Lady are totally untrustworthy around strange children and I would have to say "no". What this woman did was totally wrong and I think you did the right thing. I bet if Shippo had actually broken skin that mother would have been hysterical and blamed you for what happened instead of her, who should have been watching her child.

griffinej5

Posted : 8/20/2006 7:48:16 AM

Poor Shippo. Hopefully this one experience doesn't ruin his impression of all kids. Max likes little kids, so that usually isn't a problem for us, except that he can get too excited with them. Millie doesn't mind kids either, but she gets freaked at everything else, so if she saw something while near a kid, she might get them by accident, so I prefer not to let kids pet her. For Max, i've tried telling kids they need to ask before petting my dog as they run towards him, which isn't too successful. It seems to work better if I just show them where and how to pet him, since he prefers not to be touched over the head right away. If I have some food for him on me, I will usually let kids give him a treat. If you do this, always show them how to give it to the dog so that their fingers won't get snapped. Max takes food gently most of the time (at least everyone who gives him something always comments about this, although I never taught him to do it) but when kids give him food, I always prefer that they do it with a flat hand. You never know what kid might hold it in a death grip and then the dog might try a little harder to grab it and scare the kid. I've only ever had one case of a little kid following me when I was trying to get rid of her. She wasn't bothering Max, but was following us as we walked away from her house towards where Max was used to going. He'll stop for petting, but only for so long, and I didn't want to lead her away from where someone could see her if they were watching her from the window. Luckily, her mother came out to yell at her for something else, so she stopped following us. Otherwise, I usually just say we have to go, or something along the lines of that, and it has been sucessful in getting rid of the kids.

glenmar

Posted : 8/20/2006 7:55:29 AM

During the MS Walk some smart aleck little kid was walking in front of us and when Tyler got close enough, the kid started thumping him on the head. I tried the never petting strange dogs line and the kid was a smart a$$....whatever lady type answer. When he asked "so does the dog bite or what?", I told him maybe, but I absolutely WOULD bite him if he touched my dog again. I had been nice up to that point.........

I'm thinking in your situation I would have picked the KID up and returned her to her mother.

ron2

Posted : 8/20/2006 8:23:11 AM

If I had done so as a kid, I would have been spanked and sent to bed without dessert. Not +R but effective. Perhaps the parent needs to be sent to bed without dessert.

olinda

Posted : 8/20/2006 8:24:46 AM

Good for you is what every responsible parent should do.

I hate it when kids run up to Romeo, I always get in front of him and stop the kid before they start all the poking. I wait for the parent to catch up to the child (they run up to him so they get there first) and then I tell them in front of the parent so they can hear is not good to approach a strange dog that way because the dog may see it in a lot of different ways and may not have a good reaction and then I proceed to teach them how to approach and pet a dog once given permission by the person who is walking the dog. Usually this embarrasses the parent for letting the kid just run up to Romeo, but they are still thankful I showed the child something. [

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Sometimes though I just say "please don't touch the dog he is not in a good mood today"

marynh

Posted : 8/20/2006 8:29:52 AM

with a kid like this you don't tell the parent anything cause they created the problem in the first place

chewbecca

Posted : 8/20/2006 8:42:18 AM

You can borrow my kids!
Not to brag (and not that I'm ever going to be 100% sure how my children will act) but I don't leave my children around MY dog unsupervised and I don't allow them in her face or to tease her. I have them work with her and give her commands and treats, but I make sure they are respectful of her or they are made to get away from her.
Before we went to meet her, I told them everyday that when we go meet Ella that they are not to run to her, they are to allow her to go to them and sniff them first.
I am a firm believer in not invading a dog's space. And I would NEVER allow my child to just walk up and pet a dog they do not know. I wasn't allowed to as a child and I've always been cautious of dogs because of it.

Christi

Posted : 8/20/2006 9:32:50 AM

We had sort of the opposite experience yesterday at a car show. Husband, two sons, Ruby, and I were walking around and the boys saw a really beautiful Boston. They asked me if they could pet it and I said no and redirected them to the car that my husband was looking at. My reasoning was that I don't know this dog, I'm not going to bother the owner, and it was very jumpy. I know that Bostons can jump really high and my 5-year old is small so I didn't want to deal with that. I had an adorable 4-month old Boston climb me like a ladder at the dog park. Anyway, the owner must've heard me because she got really snotty and said that her dog was very friendly and I should let my boys pet her. They were already with dad at the car, no reason to pursue this further so I politely said thanks anyway and walked away. I thought that was kinda weird, that she was offended that I wouldn't let the boys pet her dog. Mind you, I said nothing to the boys about the dog, just no, let's go see what daddy's looking at. Strange reaction from her.

Jeff Cornella

Posted : 8/20/2006 10:20:58 AM

No offense, but from the sounds of things, you caused the bite.

Your reaction to the child escalated the dogs reaction and things got worse. You convinced your dog he should be afraid.

When socializing your dog with the "well behaved' kids, respond with confidence and so will your dog.

tiffy

Posted : 8/20/2006 11:07:26 AM

k9therapist, I disagree. She did everything right. I also have a corgi and she does not like to be cornered, poked, etc... If shes had enough, she will bare teeth. The parent is at fault here.

glenmar

Posted : 8/20/2006 11:27:04 AM

I'm going out on a limb here and speak in GENERAL terms, so no tree saws please.

We, as a society, are raising children who "want what they want when they want it". We used to call these people sociopaths. Now it's gotten pretty standard as behavior goes. In GENERAL I'm not overly fond of little kids. I find them to be rude, intrusive, invasive and smart a$$es to boot. This is IN GENERAL. There are some little ones that I find absolutely delightful. The 5 year old boy who puts his hands on his hips and tells me that MY sofa is called a couch can kiss my foot. It's my sofa and I'll call it whatever the heck I wanna call it.

Again, in GENERAL, we as parents have abdicated our responsibility and accepted the "it takes a village" crap as gospel. Yep, outside influences are important, but it takes a PARENT to raise a child, and that child is NOT someone elses job, EVER. I think much of it is guilt over not being home and being parents, some of it is just flat fatigue....it's a lot easier to say yes than it is to say no, and SOME of it is lack of parenting knowledge because they grew up with parents always out of the home and didn't LEARN how to or not to parent from their own folks.

Take our public schools....teachers are not allowed to punish, discipline, scold, whatever. They might damage the childs fragile sense of self. Heck, when I was a kid if someone pulled a pigtail or even SAID something mean, off to the office they went. People paid MONEY to send their kids to private schools where the Nuns routinely whacked them on the knuckles with wooden rulers. If that happened today, well, law suit city.

I meant it when I said I would have picked that child up and taken her BACK to her mother with some stern words for mom. It is NOT ok to take your kid someplace and expect the REST of the people attending an event to take over YOUR job as the parent. You don't mess with my critters...I don't care who old you are, who you are, whatever. When I say to leave my dogs alone, I absolutely mean it and if you don't respond to words, then I just *might* get a little physical...in a non violent way.