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My dog has extreme fear aggression towards children. He is a miniature schnauzer (full blooded and beautiful). He's a wonderful dog..house trained, calm temperament, only 3 years old, always takes a submissive role in the human/dog relationship. The problem is that he has jumped towards 3 children in the past 3 years without provoking. He jumps at thier face (while the child is just standing there) and puts his teeth on their face growling loudly, but does not bite. We don't have children, but plan to. The other problem is that we have my brother-in-law staying in the house for Thanksgiving and Dusty snapped at him too! He's 30 years old. He has never snapped at my husband or I. I already had a animal behaviorist come last year and diagnosed him with fear aggression. He is not a dominant dog at all. What should I do. I feel that we need to re-home him since we plan to start having children in the coming years. It scares me that he goes towards the face when he does it.
Get a trainer. You brought him home, that's a commitment, honor it.
Fear aggressive dogs aren't dominant, they're scared. When they feel threatened they'll bite. Fight or flight. If they feel there is no way for them to escape, they go to biting.
Children don't know to not look a dog directly in the eye and that could be what set him off. Your brother may have also.
For now get a good sized kennel for him. Keep his toys and a bed in there. You don't want it to be a punishment, just a 'play pen' for him when you have company. The last thing you need to do is put him in a situation where he'll feel threatened. So when company is over, put him in his kennel in another room.
However, once the holidays are past, get yourself a trainer to come in for a day. Let them give you some pointers and tips and start working with him. If you give up now and try to re-home him, he's probably going to wind up dead or abused. That's not fair. Bringing home a dog is the same commitment as bringing home a child. If that child turns out to be a monster you wouldn't give up on it. You'd just alter your discipline method.
My dog has extreme fear aggression towards children. He is a miniature schnauzer (full blooded and beautiful). He's a wonderful dog..house trained, calm temperament, only 3 years old, always takes a submissive role in the human/dog relationship. The problem is that he has jumped towards 3 children in the past 3 years without provoking. He jumps at thier face (while the child is just standing there) and puts his teeth on their face growling loudly, but does not bite. We don't have children, but plan to. The other problem is that we have my brother-in-law staying in the house for Thanksgiving and Dusty snapped at him too! He's 30 years old. He has never snapped at my husband or I. I already had a animal behaviorist come last year and diagnosed him with fear aggression. He is not a dominant dog at all. What should I do. I feel that we need to re-home him since we plan to start having children in the coming years. It scares me that he goes towards the face when he does it.
Very first thing...do not allow ANY contact with children until this is resolved! I have a few questions for you. Was the dog in your home when these incidents happened or outside the home? What was the environment around him when the aggression was triggered? (i.e. near toys or his food, were the children running around or moving when it happened or were they trying to pet or approach him? Same questions go for the incident with your BIL. Sorry to say this but you can't say "he always take a submissive role" when he has shown aggression at least 4 times per what you have said above. This could be very dangerous for you so please.... limit all contact he has with others until this is worked out! I'm also confused with the diagnosis of fear aggression since most fear aggressive dogs I've handled strike out at the closest area available rather than targeting the face.
I paid $250 for an animal behaviorist to spend 4 hours with Dusty last year. We did everything he told us. As soon as he sees a child he just attacks out of the blue. True we could keep him if we had a child, but that would be unfair for him to be in an enclosure constantly. I would have a child mauled in the face. That's why we didn't want to rehome him the first time it happened and followed through with all the steps the behaviorist taught us. I think this is an extreme case. You can't teach a one year old to not stare a dog in the eyes. He stands very quietly and then attacks. I do want to keep him and I will try all other ways, it's scary to think if we had a child and was attacked by the dog...I don't think I could forgive myself.
I paid $250 for an animal behaviorist to spend 4 hours with Dusty last year. We did everything he told us. As soon as he sees a child he just attacks out of the blue. True we could keep him if we had a child, but that would be unfair for him to be in an enclosure constantly. I would have a child mauled in the face. That's why we didn't want to rehome him the first time it happened and followed through with all the steps the behaviorist taught us. I think this is an extreme case. You can't teach a one year old to not stare a dog in the eyes. He stands very quietly and then attacks. I do want to keep him and I will try all other ways, it's scary to think if we had a child and was attacked by the dog...I don't think I could forgive myself.
Another thing based on what you have said above. Please have your vet do a full medical assessment. There are a few medical reasons that can cause a dog to suddenly become aggressive, partial seizures is one cause that comes to mind.
Every incident has been unprovoked. The 3 incidents with the children were neighbors kids standing next to the dog ignoring him (not trying to pet him or anything) and all 2 happened on a leash outside of our house and yard while I was walking him and a neighbor came out and just wanted to say hello. Because he was on the leash, I was able to pull him back. It was shocking. The third time with a child it was at my father-in-laws house and I had Dusty in my lap and a three year old sat down beside us watching TV. The 3 year old didn't even acknowledge Dusty and bam, he went for the face. The incident with my brother-in-law happened in my home. He had already been there for 24 hours. He just bent down to pet him on the side of his jaw. Insead of going for the hand, he went for the face.
When I was younger, we had a dog that was extremely agressive towards strangers. I don't know why but he became really protective at about 5 months of age. Maybe it was the mixture of breeds in him (Pit, Chow, German Shephard, Poodle, Terrier). He would bark and growl at someone he didn't know, then if they did approach him, he would cower until they turned their back to him, then he'd charge them and try to bite from behind.
When I had friends come over, I always gave them his tennis ball to throw for him from the other side of the fence. After that, he saw them as a friend. When he was around 10, he bit the landlady when she came into the yard (he was on a chain, broke it and charged her). He bit her on the hand when she reached down to protect herself, and broke skin. After that, we moved to another place that had a large 5 foot wooden fence, where people wouldn't be able to put hands through or enter without us being there. We lucked out that lady didn't go to the authorities, and there was no way we were going to chance him ever biting someone else.
I would have NEVER trusted him around children, and luckily, my husband and I didn't have any. It would have never been worth the risk because in this day and age, if your child gets attacked by a family dog that has been known as agressive towards children (for whatever reason), not only will the dog most likely be euthanized, but you as parents can be held as negligent. I'm not sure that I would be willing to take that risk. I'd do what Mrs1885 suggested and get a trainer out to work with him. If that doesn't help with his behavior, I wouldn't have children while I have him and I'd make sure that he was put up when other children were around. The fact that he acted this way with an adult shows that it isn't just towards children anymore, so that's also something to take into account.
Last edited by KanoasDestiny; 11-27-2009 at 11:29 AM..
He was standing behind me on the leash. He always walks behind me when walking. The trainer told me to expose him to more children (that didn't work). He also taught me how to establish dominance which I did. I ask that dog to jump and he could speak he would say how high. Always obeys. Does have a high prey drive as he chases our cat, but has never hurt him. He does try to establish dominance with other dogs. He did growl at my husband once, but he growled back and he's never done it again. I groom him, can pull hairs out of his ears...etc without him even getting bothered one bit.
He was standing behind me on the leash. He always walks behind me when walking. The trainer told me to expose him to more children (that didn't work). He also taught me how to establish dominance which I did. I ask that dog to jump and he could speak he would say how high. Always obeys. Does have a high prey drive as he chases our cat, but has never hurt him. He does try to establish dominance with other dogs. He did growl at my husband once, but he growled back and he's never done it again. I groom him, can pull hairs out of his ears...etc without him even getting bothered one bit.
OK - getting a clearer picture (yes all of this is leading to finding the type of trainer/behaviour modification instructor he needs). Most importantly, no more interaction with children until this is resolved! Now for the questions.... After he has lunged at people, how did you react and what was your dogs reaction to your correction? What type of leash and collar do you use? Where does he sleep at night? How does he react if he is asked to move from the place his is sleeping? Finally, what sort of control commands does he know and respond to? (i.e. sit, stay, down, off, leave it..etc) By respond, I mean that he obeys without repetition of the command?
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