From: terry@eece.ksu.edu (Terry Hull)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.dogs
Subject: Re: 6 mo. old GSD vs. my 4 yo daughter - HELP
Date: 1 Sep 1992 15:52:05 GMT
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: ralph.eece.ksu.edu

isjrc@dcatla.uucp (John R. Caruso) writes:

>	OK, what am I supposed to do? The dog thinks he's a kid.
>	He's 6 months old so maybe that's the way it's supposed to
>	be but is he entitled to the sandbox??? - he's taken it over.
>	He destroys anything my daughter might build in there and
>	then when they disagree tempers flare and each doesn't act
>	accordingly.

As the proud parent of a 14 month old son, a 4 year old Rottweiler, a 
3 year old Border Collie cross and a 6 month old Rottweiler, I think I qualify
to help here.  All dogs are house dogs, BTW:  

This one is simple.  Keep the puppy out of the sandbox when your
daughter is there.  No problem.  I see no problem letting the puppy
dig in the sandbox when your daughter is not there.  Of course, he
would need to be taught not to eliminate in the sandbox, but that
should not be a problem if he only had 2 accidents in the house as you
indicate later in your letter.  

>	The sandbox is not the main problem. He's confident. In his
>	litter, he regularly beat up on his little sister to the 
>	point of her yelping - I saw that 2 or 3 times when we
>	bought him at 3 mos of age. 

Hmmm.  You got what you asked for.  He who takes the alpha puppy from
a litter usually gets an alpha dog.  I'd think the breeder would have
warned you about this.  Oh, well, that is water under the bridge, and
we have to solve the problem.

>       Now he thinks my daughter is
>	his little sister. The problem is that when he wants to be
>	in control, he grabs her with his mouth. We've tried verbal
>	corrections, yelping and crying, raps under the chin, and
>	even, as one previous poster suggested, a finger down the
>	throat (he thought that was a great treat)! 

You were probably not aggressive enough with the finger down the throat.  
If the dog does not submit, you can go to the point that the dog will
gag.  

>       He used to do
>	the same thing to me and my wife but has stopped altogether.

Yes, you daughter is a lot easier to dominate.  He'll deal with you
and your wife later.  ;-(.

>	Are there any alpha-type exercises I could do with my 
>	daughter to establish her as superior? 

IMHO, no.  You cannot establish the child as superior, because the child is 
not mentally or physically more capable than the dog.  Instead, you
must establish yourselves as masters and have the dog respect the
child because YOU say so.  I would suggest getting the Monks of New
Skete's book, "How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend" and reading the
sections in there on dominance.  They will talk about an alpha roll
that may or may not help.  Actually, it will help eventually, but it
may take months of work.  I further suggest obedience classes and not
just any old obedience class either.  I would suggest a class from
someone who trains working or herding dogs.   They need to be able to 
help you with the dominance issue and most Golden type trainers are
not very good with dominant dogs.  (Obviously there are exceptions to this
rule.  Many really excellent trainers that can handle all kinds of
dogs prefer to train softer dogs themselves.)  

>       Neutering the dog is 
>	definitely in the future. Will that help?

Not likely.  You will greatly reduce or even eliminate the sex drives
in the dog and the dominance related to those drives, but this dog
will still want to be pack leader.  Besides if he is just 6 months
old, you are not seeing any of the dominance that is coming from his
sex drives yet.  I would get him altered now though, lest the sex
hormones kick in and make the problem worse.  ;-(

>	Other than that he's a great dog. Took to the crate in about 
>	4 hours and has never messed in it. Only 2 accidents in the
>	house. Craves affection and companionship. The first day
>	training with the long lead was frustrating - I couldn't
>	fool him!

Now for something very practical that you can do immediately.  When
the dog is around your daughter, make sure there is an adult there to
monitor the situation and handle the dog.  I would not allow the dog
to put his mouth on my daughter.  If he does this, I would scruff
shake him and/or alpha roll him and take him out of the situation.
Effectively, I would tell him that if he does not play nice, he can't
play at all.  Putting him in his crate for a while seems like a good
possibility.  I would work with the dog away from the girl as much as
possible.  You need to establish control before you try to control him
around the child.  Also, I would be very careful with the cuffing
under the chin.  If this pup is really dominant, it will not do much
good and in fact may encourage the dog to fight you.  I find a slap or
bump under the chin of my Rottweilers to be VERY ineffective at
defusing a confrontation.

I do not allow my dogs to defend themselves against my son.  They have
the absolute right to get up and leave, but growling, snarling,
mouthing etc is not allowed.  Conversely, I do not allow my son to
bother the dogs when they are eating, nor do I allow my son to chase
them all over the house when he is obviously irritating them.
Sometimes they do not mind my son's "petting" and sometimes they do,
so I act accordingly.  I do not allow my dogs to play with baby toys
and I do not allow my son to steal doggie toys from the dogs.  It is a
two way street here.  I protect my son from the dogs, and I protect
the dogs from my son.  That means that the dogs do not have to worry
about protecting themselves around the house because they leave that
to me.  Obviously accidents do happen and when the baby falls on the
dogs or "pats" them too hard, they have been very accepting and have
not caused any problem at all for my son.  The only real problem we
have is sometimes the puppy will knock my son down accidentally.  The
puppy is after all an adolescent Rottweiler and all us Rottweiler
people know that "Rottweiler bump" all too well.

--
Terry Hull  -  terry@eece.ksu.edu
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Kansas State University