My Staffie bit my son

I wrote on here a while ago for some advice with my dog Ozzy and his puppy bitting. The advice was great and within a couple of weeks the behaviour had stopped. He is now 11 months old and normally a lovely, gentle, friendly dog. I say normally as today when we took him for a run down the field out of no where he grabbed my 8 year old sons foot and wouldn't let go I tried calling him, pulling him off and waving treats infront of his nose but he wouldn't let go, in the end my partner had to kick him (we wouldn't normally treat our animals like this but our son was screaming and we didn't know what else to do) luckily my sons shoes were tough and the skin was not broken but his foot is badly bruised. His behaviour has really concerned me. Does any one have any advice on how I can prevent something like this happening again, I love my dog to bits but my son is now scared of him. There was no aggression in Ozzy while he was doing this I think he was just playing but it is not acceptable. My son always treats Ozzy well and he doesn't tease him. I'm frightened that next time it won't just be a bruised foot.

I would hazzard a guess and say that in the past he's been allowed to play with shoes/feet? If that's the case then kicking him has probably confused him!

Trouble is, staffords can get very excitable when they're playing & can forget to go gently with something that is attached to a human!

I would sugest that any play involving any part of any human is stopped. Have you taught him a good "Leave" command? If so, then any time in the future that he grabs a shoe/foot/hand/clothes etc, you tell him a firm "Leave!"

I agree with Caryll. Stop any play involving parts of people or articles of clothing and work on a strong leave command.

no more advice to offer other than listen to Caryll, as you say it does sound like play and as also spoken as you realise yourself this is a staff and they do play rough. Most important is to try and involve your son in activities and that he doesn't show nerves as thios will make the dog nervous and aware

He is really good with the leave command as he was terrible for picking up rubbish from the street so was the first command we really worked on with him. And now will leave everything as long as we say leave before he's actually got it. It doesn't work once he's got hold of it.
He has nver been allowed to play with shoes, and when he was younger was terrible for nipping our toes but was always corrected when he had done it. We have never let him get away with any kind bitting of clothes or any part of a human. Apart from the incident today he no longer grabs clothes of tries to bite us. If he accidently catches out skin when taking a treat from our hand he looks upset. He really is a lovely dog so don't know where the bhaviour today came from. As for the kick it is certainly something we would never normally do and were very upset that we had to resort to that but we couldn't get his attention away from our sons foot and as much as I love my dog my sons safety will always come first!

I would go back to basics with him, Moo gets silly excited sometimes, I end play time and get her calm, Xx

In that case I'd say it was a one-off behaviour. Was your son doing anything at the time that would have made Ozzie think that he was playing with him with his foot?

Just keep an eye on him & if you see him start to look at a shoe/foot tell him to leave before he actually gets a hold!

Thanks will be keeping a close eye on him when he's with my son. I'm really hoping it was just a one off.

kicking your dog is not the right way of fixing the problem... a well train dog will stop when the master so say.

Take him to a trainer that has dealt with problematic behavior and claiming human possessions. Luring a dog into doing something to a human as a game will always fail, unless it's a sch dov that is specifically train and learned boundaries for biting.

I agree using human parts as bait is setting you up for guaranteed failure

We didn't kick him to fix the problem I came on here for advice to try and fix the problem. We kicked him because like I said my son comes first and I had to protect him and at the time didn't know what else to do. Ozzy is my first dog I'm trying really hard to make sure I'm a good owner. I feed him a good diet walk him 2 or 3 times a day and spend a lot of time trying to train him and playing with him. I'm doing my best. I love my dog. I'm not someone who hurts animals for the fun of it or as a way of punishing him. I wanted advice so if I was ever in this situation again I wouldn't have to resort to that.

A think a good idea would be to practice initiating excitement and then stopping the excitement - like finding the on and off switch It is very difficult to find the 'off' switch in youngsters but it's there! A really good way to reward calm is to re-initiate the excitement, it sounds backwards but if you can take a 'bad' behaviour and use it as the reward for stopping the behaviour then whenever you need to stop it it will be easy. It's a bit like when you teach recall, you don't put the lead on the dog every time they recall or they quickly learn not to come. Instead you call them back hold the collar for a minute and then reward with freedom again. If you can play ball or whatever creates excitement and then ask for COMPLETE calm before you reward with the ball again then the dog will quickly learn that he must be calm when you ask for calm - and that it is rewarding to do so. If you can control the intensity then you will have it cracked. Dogs that latch on have reached an unacceptable level of excitement/intensity in my experience so the key is to control the excitement in all areas. I would try your best to reward a calm state of mind whenever you see this in your dog and never to reward excitement unless you have initiated it. I would avoid tug of war games etc for the time being too. You can also reinforce your son's authority by perhaps allowing him to do some obedience work with the dog and by making sure that the dog respects his personal space at all times. For example by only allowing the dog to go into his space when invited by him. This will probably help a lot.
And please don't worry about the kick. These things happen and you did what you felt you had to do at the time - once a dog has reached that level of intensity there is very little that you can do to match it. At least the kick got his attention and stopped him from escalating further.
I hope that you manage to find a way to read the body language of your dog and pre-empt the behaviour. But please don't ignore it and 'hope it's a one off', a child shouldn't be seen as a play thing and grabbing like that is completely unacceptable behaviour and shows huge disrespect to the child. The best thing to do is to avoid that level of excitement/intensity in the first place, then it wont happen again.
Good luck finding that 'off switch' - It is challenging but once you have the power to begin and end intensity then you can trust your dog in any situation at all.

I actually agree with what Julial has said. I was reading on some games to play inside with your dog the other day, and one of them was to act wild and jump around for a minute or so, getting the dog involved, and then getting them to "freeze" and sit and be calm. Then repeat. It's meant to be fun for the dog of course, but also it teaches them to learn how to calm down in the middle of excitement. I'm sure that won't be easy and I haven't tried it myself yet, but I plan on trying it because I think if you work a lot on that, it will help a lot.

I think he was just playing, unless his body language suggests otherwise. My puppy, Loki, isn't even four months old yet, so I know it's different, but already I can see how rough they can get just from being over-excitable. Have you tried getting him really hyped up with his favourite toy, and when he's at his highest level of excitement, getting him to drop the toy or respond to you? If you can work on that, I think the same principle would apply when he's playing with your son in a way he's not meant to.

As everyone has said so far, it does sound like a bit of rough play. That is unacceptable behaviour towards your son, as is kicking him, but I understand that you were scared and unsure of what else to do, so we need to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I agree with Janey about taking him back to basics. Spend some time each day on command training, and make Ozzy work for everything from food to affection. He has to understand that if you say enough, it means enough. The same with the leave command. He should leave it when you say it whether he already has it or not.

Have your son do some training with him too, it will help Ozzy to understand where he is in the pecking order.

Please don't kick your dog again, I understand why it happened, but it really will cause problems in the long run. If you find yourself in e similar situation with him again, show absolutely no nerves or fear, FIRMLY tell him leave, or enough, or whatever it is you want him to do. If he doesn't respond, physically remove him from the situation and if you're at home, timeout - end all play and completely ignore him. If you're out with him, back on the lead, completely ignore him.

He has to understand that you mean what you say and that he must do it.

Good luck, with patience and consistency, you will get there.

c.carcel wrote:We didn't kick him to fix the problem I came on here for advice to try and fix the problem. We kicked him because like I said my son comes first and I had to protect him and at the time didn't know what else to do.

Please understand that we're not criticizing you for the spur of the moment action when you thought your son could be in danger of injury. What we all need to do now, though, is try to find a way of getting him to release without kicking should the need arise!

As Carly said, if it was one of my children I would do everything I could to stop the situation - ok I might have a few more tricks up my sleeve than you to stop it, but if the worse came to the worse I'd kick as well!

I've just started to teach Rocky the DROP command for when he has picked up something we dont want him to have and it is working, well so far anyway. The word LEAVE is great for when you can see something you want him to avoid but once he has already got hold of it we found we needed to teach another word.

Maybe some more training is needed with the dog. Have you thought about training classes for him. Do you know of anywhere in your area you could go with him? Sometimes the classes are aimed more at the owners than the dogs, so you both learn something.

shontelle wrote:

Have your son do some training with him too, it will help Ozzy to understand where he is in the pecking order.
He has to understand that you mean what you say and that he must do it.

Good stuff!!! I had a problem with onyx around 6mo with close to the same story. He didn't latch ahold of a foot. Knowing his place in a house will reinforce his liken in the pack order. I know onyx can cause the most damage and chaos in mt house, even more so than my kids. And for that he is last in order. Strongest at the bottom weakest at the top is the order in my house below my wife and I. He can't know his potential if you keep him within his means. If you give him free range at the top of the pack order, your in for major problems

Carll has given you good advice.

c.carcel wrote:He is really good with the leave command as he was terrible for picking up rubbish from the street so was the first command we really worked on with him. And now will leave everything as long as we say leave before he's actually got it. It doesn't work once he's got hold of it.

This is just a start, you also need to improve on this by getting him to drop what he has, I do this by swopping for something that has a higher value to your dog than what he has. If it is a thrown away chicken bone that can be difficult to find.

He has nver been allowed to play with shoes, and when he was younger was terrible for nipping our toes but was always corrected when he had done it. We have never let him get away with any kind bitting of clothes or any part of a human. Apart from the incident today he no longer grabs clothes of tries to bite us. If he accidently catches out skin when taking a treat from our hand he looks upset. He really is a lovely dog so don't know where the bhaviour today came from. As for the kick it is certainly something we would never normally do and were very upset that we had to resort to that but we couldn't get his attention away from our sons foot and as much as I love my dog my sons safety will always come first!

How did you teach him not to to grab or play with shoes and clothes?

You dog is a teenage hooligan at the moment and being a Staffy gets more excited than most breeds, an excited dog can just grab anything that is moving, in this case your son's foot. The more your son tried to pull his foot away the more a dog will continue to hold on to it, to a dog he is playing a game and thinks your son was as well. It is normal behaviour for your son to be frightened and try to pull his foot away, it is also normal behaviour for your dog to think your son is playing with him and hold on harder. That doesn't stop this happening again though.

Was your son running or jumping about when your dog grabbed his foot? This is important, if your dog and son were running about the easy way to stop this happening again is to have a muzzle on your dog, he can't get hold of your son's foot then. It takes time to get a dog to accept a muzzle but it can be done. If you want to go this way then we can help you get him to accept it.

I tried calling him, pulling him off and waving treats infront of his nose but he wouldn't let go,

This shows that your dog was very highly excited, his brain had shut down, when a dog refuses treats he normally takes shows that he is completely focused on what he is doing. Nothing will get his focus back so I understand him being kicked but there is another way. If a dog won't open his mouth when he has hold of something, this goes for Staffies as well, I put a wooden or metal pole through the mouth and prise it open. This is a safe way even if a dog is attacking something, the dog bites down onto the wood instead of what he had hold of or the person who is trying to get him off. My hands are badly scared from breaking up dog fights until I was told this method, never been bitten since.

It may help your son and dog if your son did some clicker training with him, this will teach both of them and build up trust. There are lots of things your son can teach him, walking through legs, jumping over his legs or arms, agility will be really good for both of them to build up control, trust and bonding.

Just a thought...could your son have stepped in something 'interesting'?

Thank you for all the advice will be giving everything a try. Ozzy is a lovely dog and is normally well behaved. Gonna work hard to build a stronger relationship between him and my son.

My Dog Bit my son about 6 weeks ago on his arm. The bite did mark his arm and broke the skin (but it did not bleed) Thomas was trying to get out of the back door with out the Blake so put his fingers in to the top of Blakes collar to pull him back. My son is 6years old and Blake about 3.

Thomas now feeds Blake every night he asks him to sit puts the food bowl on the floor and then counts to 5 in his head before telling Blake ok so he can then eat. This has helped to remind Blake that Thomas is above him in the pack. We talked about how he should feed Blake first and had a practice. I also stood close by to make sure there were no problems. (DO NOT try this if your dog is possessive with his food) Thomas when possible will also hold Blakes lead on walks. Blake now seems to listen to him a lot more and we have had on other problems. We have never played tug games with him as I don't feel this is a good idea when you have younger children. If your dog does have hold of something never try to pull it away if anything push the 2 closer together and keep as still as possible things are less fun when they don't move. I am sorry that you were so frightened that your dog needed to be kicked i think lots of work on the drop/give should prevent the need for this again. If your dog seems to be in any discomfort please pop to the vets for a check up. Good luck with all the training.

Cyril baby wrote:You dog is a teenage hooligan at the moment and being a Staffy gets more excited than most breeds, an excited dog can just grab anything that is moving, in this case your son's foot. The more your son tried to pull his foot away the more a dog will continue to hold on to it, to a dog he is playing a game and thinks your son was as well. It is normal behaviour for your son to be frightened and try to pull his foot away, it is also normal behaviour for your dog to think your son is playing with him and hold on harder.

It may help your son and dog if your son did some clicker training with him, this will teach both of them and build up trust. There are lots of things your son can teach him, walking through legs, jumping over his legs or arms, agility will be really good for both of them to build up control, trust and bonding.

I agree with the above. Working together may well stop this from happening again.

i certainly hope it was a one off and as for the kick, i also would do anything to protect my kids and im sure it was done as a last resort.