Barking at small children

[Karen Wilson]

I have a 15mth old Shep-cross bitch. She is a very well behaved girl, but seems to hate small children. She barks incessantly at them. Even if we distance her from them, she growls. Its become very awkward, especially when small children try to stroke her, either strangers or friends. She is mainly around adults, so is not really used to small children.

I could really use some advice?

[KOPsBecks]

Can I suggest that you expose her to as many young children as possible, make sure you are always in control of the situation ie. have her on a lead so she cannot bite them, and reassure her for any calm behaviour around them. Tell the children to be quite and calm at first, and as she gets calmer with them let them pat her and reassure her for good behaviour. It may take some time but you need to reassure her that children are ok to be around and you need to be confident yourself that she can be trusted around them.

[Karen Wilson]

Thanks for the advice, I'll try that.

[KOPsBecks]

Another thought I had was maybe, since she is a herding dog by nature, maybe she thinks they are what she is meant to be herding...I know that sounds strange but I used to have a Shetland Sheepdog who would herd young children and while he was doing this he would vocalise a lot. We stopped him doing this be socialisation and showing him that the children were people too. I think they just get a bit confused by whether children are people, dogs or another form of lesser animal

Good Luck

[Annie]

I also trained my dog to bring a ball back and then to back off and sit down. She was not alowed to move until the ball was thrown. In this way ( with me allways helping) my dog was able to play a safe game of fetch with kids....now she can play it safely with my 2 year old baby, and he can only throw as far as his feet but still she waits till the ball has landed and then 'fetches' it and brings it back to the baby, and then she backs off and sits again. Maybe you could try this? I´m sure your dog can fetch beautifully, and by making it a game, she might start to like kids. Try with older kids first...
Annie