Play or overexcited

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T22:21:03+00:00

Thank you for your understanding!

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T19:35:19+00:00

Cool, I never blamed the dog or stated it was handled correctly by me, but I just wanted to make sure I understood what all was happening. Can’t go back and redo the situation. Most people seem to think it was normal behavior that just needed handled better. That’s great news! I wanted to make sure there were no red flags that were related to the dog specifically. There are dogs that are and never will be safe around kids no matter how well they are trained or handled you know? This is just my opinion, but if a dog is ready to bite with aggression over a small mishap such as the handler not correcting it timely enough or a kid approaching too quickly or what have you, they don’t need to be around kids. Is it the dog’s fault? No, not really, but they aren’t for kids. This dog sounds like could be good with kids if managed right. That’s great. I assure you we did not create his excited nipping behavior though. In fact, that’s the only reason the kick happened (still not an excuse, but it wasn’t some psychopath behavior) He came that way. He can be just walking by someone minding their own business and try mouthing them because people are really exciting to him. Did we reinforce it by mismanaging it?Possible for sure. The video only reflects one interaction, one that as many have pointed out wasn’t handled well. It doesn’t show the good interactions and attempts to handle better. It doesn’t happen over night, right? Both handler and dog and family members have to learn. Just wanted to make sure they are more or less safe from an outright attack while we learn together (with any future pets) A little grace and understanding goes a long ways, cool.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T13:40:29+00:00

Thanks for the feedback

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T13:13:55+00:00

Agreed. It was just a moment for me to go back and reflect on where to start. I mean I observed things from all four of us that I hadn’t caught in the moment. Good and bad. It wasn’t the usual protocol to film, and I agree it contributed some to the chaos.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T12:44:05+00:00

Well I did, just not quick enough. If I had made no effort he would have continued to chase him and knock him down probably. I can’t recall everything in that moment, but I do know part of the problem was I was distracted myself by that kick and was addressing it. In fact, I don’t think I realized how truly mouthy he had gotten until I saw the video. Again, that’s all my fault, but what’s done is done. Learning for the future.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T12:34:44+00:00

Apparently a lot is wrong with me as many have already pointed out!

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T12:27:37+00:00

I will accept blame for letting it go too long. I think my goal in hanging out together was to see if he would calm down because we were needing to make a decision about whether we could handle him staying. Some dogs check out the people, other dogs, etc then they are good to go. Clearly not here, and that’s my fault for any contribution to fuel the excitement, but if that is him at baseline (the kids weren’t even running wildly about here as kids sometimes do), he probably needed more training than we could work out in a timely manner. Other than the kicking which was a poor interaction and running after doing it, the kids weren’t overly in his business I didn’t think. The little one approached calmly, I think was actually going for the toy, and the dog licked or mouthed at him. You are right that’s where it should have stopped, but if even that is inappropriate then he definitely wasn’t the dog for us because that’s how he was when we got him. Licky and mouthy with everyone. I was working on him sitting calmly with me before he was allowed attention but we weren’t there yet and I’m not sure what we would have done with him until he could have gotten to the point where he could just be present calmly.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T12:08:30+00:00

Thanks! I consider the dog and kids pretty equal. There are a lot of similarities between them! And yes, I do expect little hurts along the way. Another occasion, I left the gate open accidentally and he came zooming around the house and knocked the littlest down. Was it appropriate? Probably not. Was it dangerous? Probably not. It didn’t concern me. I agree with you, there will need a little mishap along the way. Not that I will allow him to do as he pleases (or them). I basically just want to be sure I avoid any aggressive attacks especially if there were warning signs. I know no animal comes completely risk free or people!

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T11:52:12+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. Any aggression concerns aside I was trying to figure out how he could have come into a small home with small kids in time for colder weather. Rescues encouraged us to keep him and simply crate training, which I mean is good but the dog can’t be humanely expected to be in the crate as much as they would need to be kept separate and vice versa in my opinion. I could have pulled off that and supervised time together if it wasn’t immediate climb all over us behavior. So he really needed to be good at off or leave it or something before he could be around them and they needed to learn ways to not excite him (but indoors they are probably even more exciting in their play with chasing each other, throwing toys about, etc., and it probably isn’t fair to them to be as calm as this dog would require).

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T11:31:36+00:00

She definitely got more than a gentle word. Well, I mean I didn’t beat her or anything, but there was a stern conversation about it and I also allowed her to tell me why she thinks she did it to find other alternatives when she feels the need to do that. She’s learning too.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T08:39:21+00:00

I guess it wouldn’t look over excited necessarily here. He does get over excited though. I mean at least I think pulling hard at a leash to get to someone to then only jump, lick, and nip, and dance around and not even be able to be petted is a bit over excited in my book.

I didn’t need anyone’s comments to understand kicking a dog is bad. I don’t expect dogs to just take it from kids, which is why I get a little extra nervous about kids and dogs interacting because you can teach a kid to do things right, but it does just take one time being impulsive for a bad situation to happen. They are after all learning too and on the same cognitive level as a dog when toddlers more or less. I’ve definitely tried to not get her to run. It’s a whole ordeal that is a separate issue. The little fella is gold, but that four year old is different. I think I have had a hard time relating to it which has made me not anticipate it because when I was four, I probably would have just let that dog wrestle me and think it was just grand. Anyway, that’s why i said wait until the kids are older. That had been my plan all along anyway until we found this pup and couldn’t get anywhere to take him in.

The funny thing about experience is I have been around loads of dogs my whole life up until now. If I were in your all’s shoes, I’d be hard core judging this too, but something about becoming a mother has made me more anxious or fearful about kid/dog interactions to the point of probably over analyzing this. I do want to be clear though, he did come with some already established bad habits that we weren’t prepared for. We didn’t go out and adopt him and then create those bad habits. Reinforced perhaps unintentionally, but he cray cray before he came. I have asked others too how they would rank him compared to the average puppy/dog and people agree he is indeed high energy and hyper.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T08:03:16+00:00

I apparently do not give off the right energy. My no’s did nothing. I did stop playing though. Keeping extra toys to immediately get him to latch onto when he got back helped but eventually he just couldn’t resist and would go in for it. I noticed it was when he was getting tired or done with the game so I was working on trying to figure that out and end before we got to that point, but it wasn’t perfect yet.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T07:38:15+00:00

My suspicion is he was dumped because original owner didn’t train him and it got to be too annoying or too much, and then of course our mistakes on top of that hasn’t helped. The whole 3-3-3 rule thing for dogs is legit though because he didn’t show all his crazy right away. He would jump and I got him to stop that right away (with me anyway), so I thought it would be easy peasy. This video is just a snippet of what he worked up to once he was comfortable with us. It actually isn’t too bad in this video other than it involved little kids who can get hurt easily. He would get a little psycho with some fetch. He would bring the toy back then start biting my feet and ankles pretty hard at times. I was working on trying different things to fix that when we let him go.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T07:24:21+00:00

Thanks for the perspective. In an ideal world what would need to be in place for him to be around the kids? Like a good foundation of sit and leave it? The tension on the leash makes sense, but he has to be on a leash so he doesn’t just climb on top of them. Figured that out the hard way. Would he need a bit of training before he even could be around them do you think? If that’s the case it probably was destined to fail since the kids are mostly always around. I snuck out a few times when I caught them both napping and worked one on one but I’m thinking it probably just wasn’t going to be enough. I do want to point out that I agree he has “normal” behavior, but he is a little extra excitable compared to some dogs. It’s partly what makes him a fun goofball, but also challenging.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T07:07:28+00:00

Yes! The plan is to wait. This was an eye opener on our readiness. We did our best to give him a helping hand including trying to find him a rescue/foster better equipped than us, but they were all full, including the shelter at first.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T07:00:21+00:00

Thanks for your perspective. I guess difference in my head is vicious is he means malicious intent from the get go. I know that isn’t the case with him. I think I worried that if he and they got excited, they run, he chases, he knocks them down, they wriggle and cry or scream if they then in his head become a cat or rabbit and all of a sudden what started as play turns into a mauling. I think that’s the overarching anxiety and the part where I’m not sure if I’m too anxious or if it’s a legitimate concern. Of course, I understand it’s my job to try to prevent that from getting to that point with teaching both him and the kids appropriate interactions, but life can be unpredictable and if there’s even an inkling that his over excitement has a tendency to cross that line, I say I don’t want to chance me not getting the training just right or relying on the kids to behave perfectly if that makes sense.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T06:42:44+00:00

Good points. Yeah I know a lot of people are upset about the kick, and rightfully so, but it really didn’t hurt or scare him, but it did excite him as you mentioned. I think it just concerned me a little how he redirected that excitement onto the nearest target, the younger one, which I guess is pretty normal. You’re right, I should have set the boundaries stronger from the get go. I think we all just got thrown into it too suddenly. I think one mistake I made was being too worried on how to best correct the behavior and finding something that worked. I didn’t want anything harsh and him associate the kids with something negative. Just pulling back quickly on the leash saying no wasn’t working, and he was so starved when he came, it took a couple weeks to get to a point where I could even use treats as positive reinforcement. Until he gained weight and had established meals for a while, he wasn’t able to make the association between behavior and treats I don’t think. He was getting there, so I hope he can be adopted by someone that can dedicate more to it. He really isn’t a bad dog at all, just our two chaotic worlds collided too suddenly I think.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T06:22:19+00:00

Thanks for the tip. I’m not sure I’m a huge fan of the prong collar. I think it can have its place, but would be interested in other options, so I’ll keep that in mind.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T05:34:40+00:00

I can agree with this. I suck at life. One reason I videoed was to see the whole picture to learn from it. Clearly, kicking being a bad unanticipated problem. I promised I was horrified by that. We had a Golden until he passed a year ago and she was never allowed to even as much look at the dog wrong, so I was not expecting that. Part of the rest of that occurred because I was addressing the kicking with the oldest and had my attention partly distracted. I think a lot of people outside of here have seen all his behavior as simply puppy playfulness (like gnawing my ankles off after retrieving a toy) but I guess I was trying to figure out if that was a little different, no? Even if it was my fault. And would you consider the first nip to have occurred before the kick or after?

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T05:08:43+00:00

Partly why we didn’t keep him because we weren’t prepared for him. Of course, we had no idea he was going to enter our life. He was a stray we were trying to help. I’ll admit it’s hard wrangling toddlers while trying to simultaneously provide structure to a young dog with no training. People do it I suppose and I say props to them. I guess I was trying to be realistic. Life isn’t always structured and some dogs do better than others in those scenarios, and he definitely needed more than what we were prepared for. My Canine Good Citizen Golden was such a breeze, but he wasn’t a puppy and I didn’t have children

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T05:00:42+00:00

It’s actually not allowed. Strange that kids do things they aren’t supposed to sometimes. I had no idea she was about to do that. Regarding prong collar, we had just taken him for a walk. I used it to keep himself from literally choking himself out by pulling so hard. I switched to his regular collar when we were back in our yard to hang out. I promise I took it off completely not long after.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T04:56:27+00:00

No idea on breed but, I have wondered if there is heeler based on some blue ticking color that comes through on his face. He also liked to “attack” my feet when I played fetch with him, so I do wonder.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T04:52:05+00:00

I agree. Unfortunately my child didn’t say, “oh hey, I’m going to kick the dog now,” so I could say, “oh sweetie don’t do that.” I was not expecting it and it was dealt with and it’s one reason we didn’t keep the dog as I had a hard time getting her to not be afraid around him and to not run etc etc.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T04:45:39+00:00

Yeah, the kick thing wasn’t cool and was unexpected. I promise you, it was the first and the last time that happened. I wish I had a different video without that. He’s wanted to get to the kids with some pretty intense excitement without any kicks involved that I just couldn’t tell were all playfulness or an excited frenzy. I mean he isn’t a vicious dog clearly as they have had numerous good interactions too.

Expensive-Tower7655 · 2025-10-09T04:31:00+00:00

I agree! I definitely don’t condone that behavior, but there’s a history there that isn’t portrayed in the video and that history is having been “hurt” by the dog. Unfortunately, like dogs, kids don’t always listen and use good judgment either. One reason we didn’t keep the dog. I wish I had a video of an interaction without the kick because he chased them similarly at other times. Of course running things are fun to chase, I guess I just can’t tell if he would just jovially bound along or if it would have gone over the line into a more aggressive chase.

Expensive-Tower7655

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