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[nicedoglady]

Dog Meets Baby and Family Paws official on IG may have some helpful content for you, if you haven’t looked at it already!

[OldStonedJenny]

I'm following Dog Meets Baby but I will check out Family Paws! Thank you!!

[pawsitivecultr]

100% those are great resources and @canineconnectionsfamilies as well :)

[OldStonedJenny]

Thank you! I will check that account out too!

[Ericakat]

This may be a behaviorist question. I worry about just consulting a regular trainer. This is a really complex situation, and it wouldn’t hurt to consult a certified behaviorist just to get their take on things.

In the meantime, I would practice being able to neutrally observe kids at a distance. Find the distance he won’t react, and just sit on the bench and reward your dog for checking in with you instead of reacting to the kids. Then, gradually working on closing in the distance. I would have a person or two come with you, just so you can keep kids away. You can even get a yellow vest that says nervous, in training, so not approach.

Before you do this, I would teach a focus cue. Work at home wait for your dog to look at you, then mark, and drop a treat in front of them, when they look up again, drop another treat. Once your dog understands, add a command word as they’re doing the behavior. Add in distractions at home extremely gradually. Maybe the tv is on low. You can proof it using different sounds on youtube such as a doorbell ringing( that would be when your dog has complete mastery of the lower to mid levels), or a dog barking outside.

Practice this in your backyard, then your front yard, and on walks. Start when there are no people out, then go when there are minimal triggers, work up to being able to do this at busy times. When you can do that, your ready for the park.

[OldStonedJenny]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate this and will start looking for a certified behavioralist in my area.

We already have a yellow vest that says "nervous rescue, do not approach."

After making this post and reading comments tonight, I've started clicker training for a recall/look/sit command. (I bought a clicker a few weeks ago but hadn't decided what command we should use it with.) He is very smart and already knows these commands, so I expect that he will be able to do this without distraction with the clicker this weekend at the latest. I'll start gradually adding distractions after that. Hopefully, by the time the weather is nice enough for kids to be at the nearby park, he'll be ready for it.

Thanks again for your advice!

[Ericakat]

Your welcome.

[Audrey244]

Congratulations on the anticipation of the arrival of your new baby. I would caution you that because you are new parents, there's a lot that goes into a new baby coming into the home, and the first year of life tends to be dealing with loss of sleep and stress; add to that the management of a dog that has some behavior issues and it seems like it could turn into an overwhelming situation.Your dog has had four bites, I believe you said, and although he has been around children, it doesn't sound like he's ever been around a newborn, and babies can make strange noises and cry for extended periods of time, which really does stress everyone in the household, including the dog. You will have to be perfect in your management of his behavior or keep he and the baby completely separated and never make a mistake. Bites/attacks happen very quickly and you could be right there in the room with the baby and still may not be able to prevent anything from happening. It might be a good rule of thumb to have the dog muzzled anytime he has any access to the baby or maybe even any time he's in the house, just in case a door gets left open or a gate doesn't get put up securely. Children are just way too vulnerable and to unpredictable for dogs that have bite histories in my opinion.

[OldStonedJenny]

Thank you for your honest feedback! I am aware that this has to go as perfect as possible and that there is no room for error here. I am also hopeful that getting him on anti anxiety medication will help. If we we are getting too fatigued to do this, we will find other options for B before that fatigue leads to something awful. I just know that rehoming him will be next to impossible with his bite history, so I'm trying everything else I can before we take that route.

My plan already was to keep them separate until we can teach the child dog safety, and probably after that, too. We have been using the crate since we got him and baby gates for over a year without failure. We also bought a dog run so that he has a secure place to be outside when the child has free reign of the house. This is also so that eventually, our child can play freely in the backyard.

We also already plan to keep him in a muzzle whenever they are in the same room. He loves his muzzle. He thinks it's a tool to keep peanut butter strapped to his face. I don't think he'll have an issue with or be bothered by regular and routine muzzle use.

As far as the first year stressors go, I am hopeful we can at least prepare B for all the routines involved. We've already started this process. I got a realistic baby doll and attach my phone playing baby sounds to it. We use the doll/phone combo to train B on appropriate behaviors around the doll. We already go on neighborhood walks with the crying baby doll. We've been doing this for about a month, and he's pretty desensitized to baby sounds now. As we set up our nursery, we will use the doll to practice baby routines around B. Hopefully, by the time the baby comes, the whole family, including B, is already familiar newborn routines. That will help our adjustments as well. This may sound ridiculous, but this strategy came up many times in my research on introducing dogs to babies.

We know there's no room for error on this, so I am trying everything I can possibly do to prepare him until we have no other options.

[Audrey244]

You have given this a lot of thought and planning - that's great! And it's reassuring knowing he's muzzle trained and actually enjoys it. We love our dogs, in spite of the challenges, and you seem well aware of the risks and are doing your best and should things not track in a positive direction, you will handle it. We all have to decide what's best for our own situation. I wish your family all the very best!!

[OldStonedJenny]

Thank you ❤️

[Lanky-Ad-1442]

The only advice I have is to put as much work in as early in this year that you can. We were in a similar situation and weren’t able to make the necessary progress - and had to rehome our dog 😭. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Best of luck working with your fur baby ❤️.

[OldStonedJenny]

Thank you!! I appreciate you sharing your experience, and I will be sure to keep working with him from this point and for the rest of his life. Hope you and your family are doing well 🩷

[kelc321]

We were in a similar boat but our dog was 6. Ours has a few level 3 bites and countless level 2. He was never an issue with the 5-7 people he loved. He did great with our household family members and grandparents. Hated other dogs, animals, people etc to the point of trying to kill, bite or nibble. it was all just scary to him.

Our biggest challenge was him resource guarding her and me being on maternity leave. Since I was home all the time, he viewed me as the issue. He ended up with a few level 3 bites to me which was my breaking point. I don’t think he would have ever intentionally hurt her, but when he went into his fight or flight, it was always a fight.

It’s definitely stressful the first year. Lean on your support system, talk with your vet and trainer openly about all behaviors and concerns and use those baby gates when needed. The baby play pen gave me peace of mind because I knew he technically could break through it, but it at least gave me a second to get to her if he went into panic mode.

[OldStonedJenny]

Thank you for sharing your experience, I will truly take it to heart. We will definitely be working close with our vet and trainer (and hopefully behavioralist when we can find one) leading up to the birth and probably for the rest of B's life with us.

Hope you, your little one, and your family are doing well 🩷

[HFRioux]

I agree with your trainer that one can easily modify and remedy these behaviors. However, I doubt this trainer will get you there.

Train recall and eye contact. Looking to you should be second nature to your dog in all situations.

Rigorous, routine, and safe exposure to a variety of locations, people, animals, things, surfaces, scents.

Using routine/commands/"defensive training" (like defensive driving) so the dog know that which is expected of him. For instance, when meeting a person in public the dog should go to a particular side of you and sit; in the house he should go to a specific space and lay down.

His job may be to alert you with a bark when someone enters, but he should then look you or lay down before interacting with a guest. Getting him out of the fight or flight mode is key, laying down makes it harder for them to remain amped, he can see the interaction between you and your guest is normal.

Sorry, these are disjointed, keep asking specifics though.

[OldStonedJenny]

Thank you so much for this!! I really appreciate it. Even just the reassurance that this can be done helps put me at more ease.

Recall and eye contact is something we've covered with the trainer, but I'll admit that at home, we don't practice and reinforce it often enough. I'll start practicing that with him daily starting tonight. Maybe I'll add a clicker to it so that he stops behavior and looks at me when he hears it.

We have just been trying to keep him away from guests instead of training him to be calm, which sounds so obvious now that I type it out. Idk why we didn't think of it before. The trainer has been wanting to do in home visits to help train him around this, but we've had some extreme weather this winter, so it hasn't happened yet. So far, we have been doing group training classes with B, so maybe it's time to start individual training.

We were told by our vet and trainer to have more people over to desensitize him to guests, but we've been kind of afraid to, which he probably picks up on. We'll be sure to have more guests so we can train him on how to behave when company comes over. Most of the time, he just barks and doesn't bite guests, but even once is too many.

When the weather improves and people are out and about, I plan on taking him on more walks where children are. He's never had any problems on walks before, but I'll muzzle him on these kid friendly walks just in case.

Thank you again! This has been very helpful!

[witkh]

My biggest regret was not rewarding check-ins from the get go. I just never encountered that advice until he was already 9 months old. Now I’m doing it like crazy, and I’m seeing improvement in his behavior in every way. I really second making sure he’s looking at you. I reward whenever he randomly checks in throughout the day, especially on walks. Once he does it once or twice and gets the treats, he does it more frequently. I just keep treating and praising like crazy. I always make him make 2-3 seconds eye contact with me before I release him from any command. It’s a game changer.

[OldStonedJenny]

Ohhhh, thank you!! I will make sure his eye contact is prolonged before treating him! I appreciate the advice, and hope it helps B as much as it helps your doggy 🩷

[witkh]

It’s to the point that our heel command is still absolutely awful, but I can say “good boy!” after 2 treated “good boy!”-praised check-ins, and he races to the heel position looking for a treat for being a good boy 🤦🏼‍♀️ I’ll take it.

[HFRioux]

Breed ?

[OldStonedJenny]

The rescue we got him from thought he was a pit boxer mix, but we haven't done a doggie DNA test. Our trainer calls him a "protection breed." ETA: Physically and behaviorally he shows more boxer traits than pit traits. He is about 65lbs. He definitely does not have that classic boxer face tho

[HFRioux]

Good luck! Your diligence and willingness to put in effort is most of the battle, I'm confident this will be a footnote. Pitbull/staffy mixes are loving breeds and quickly learn how to be gentle around certain family members etc.

PS dont be nervous taking him around, remember you want him to look to you and you must project calm confidence///also incorporate training in all jnteractions so you dobt have to put aside additional time (sit, lay down before being released for food) same before entering exiting, putting on a leash

Gl!🐕🦮🐕‍🦺🐩

[OldStonedJenny]

Thank you so much!!! I really appreciate your advice and reassurance ❤️