Nipping at Toddler

hello everyone,
I signed up a while back with another email but had to re-register because I completely forgot my username.

So, Cooper is now 16 months old. I came to this forum because I was worried about dog aggression when he was 3-6 months old and it turns out he is extremely reactive to dogs and dog aggressive. Anyway.. that's not what this post is for.

Cooper is turning into a wonderful dog. He gets along with our family and friend's dogs so far. He does not like dogs he doesn't know. He never play bites our arms or hands or fingers even though he's very very playful. He has never shown any aggression towards people. He is with us for the holidays visiting family and yesterday we had our nephews over that are 3 1/2 years old. Cooper has spent very very little time with kids before, but the last time the twins visited us there was no issues at all with Cooper. This time though, when one of the twins would run around in the house, cooper would start to run next to him and nip at his shirt. He did it about 5 times yesterday and it made me very uncomfortable. I am ok if he is dog aggressive but I need him to do well with children. Has anyone else experienced this? Is he still considered a puppy and is this puppy nipping? Please advise.

Also, I used to run him when he was younger, it's been more than six months since we ran together... but he used to nip at the leash when we would run, i'm not sure if there's a correlation.


Thank goodness for this forum, I'm so grateful to have fellow staffy owners to chat with.

Sounds very much like play to me especially as you have seen a correlation between the nipping and running. As with any Dog I would keep a close eye on the interactions between very little people and dogs just in case. Is there any other time, like playing with toys that you've seen any unwanted behaviour ?

With the Dog aggression, I can only speak from my experience but my Flo is absolutely fine with dogs she is associated with i.e friends or family's dogs but will get grumpy with dogs that pester her when out on walks. We use a distraction method when situations might arise & this works 100% of the time.

Sounds like play to me. They tend to view young children or anyone on the floor as a playmate. At 16 months he may be going through the teenage phase as well

This link may help as well

http://staffy-bull-terrier.com/staffie_pups_and_young_children

Bane was first introduced to my nephew when he was maybe about 9-10 months old. Nephew being maybe a year and half thought a new dog was great fun to run around screaming at, to which Bane did similar as your pup; chased and barked and jumped around crocodile snapping trying to play.

We kept a close eye (he was also a bit of a jumper and face licker) and corrected any unwanted behaviour just with a firm 'no' and redirection of his attention. They don't meet very often and it only took a few times for him to learn how to behave. He just mainly ignores him now and gets in a sneaky kiss every now and again!

You do have to train the dog but also train the child in a way.

We have the same with Ben. He is very dog reactive (i think more scared than aggressive), but is fine with people.
When we first had him he was very boisterous and did snap at a man in the park who reached to pat him on his head as we were going through kissing gates. This made me very anxious if strangers wanted to pet him but he is now much more placid dog and is great with people.
My step grand daughter is now 4 but we dont see them that often. When she was little and we had just had ben i was very anxious but he was great - we just made sure that she was calm with him and told her to move away if he looked uncomforatable - she was in his home and a place where he should be safe. If she ran or screamed he would get excited and want to play but we tried to keeep her calm as he can be very strong and has sharp claws when playing. They are both really good together now and he accepts her around him. She loves playng training games with him - a good way to get her involved but keep ben calm too.
We saw my cousins 2 year old at christmas and you could tell by his face it was a "oh not lttle ones again" expression!
I think you dog just wants to play, but the child could get hurt through no fault of your dog, so i would encourage them to play calmly. Maybe ask him to sit, stay etc rather than run round.

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the advice and will you keep you posted on what happens with Cooper in the future. Happy New Year!

sure hope so we love photos here coopers a great name for your staffy. happy new year

joj123- how old is ben now?

Ben is 4 now - still a big baby though