Growling For The 1St Time

[Busderpuddle]

We have had Ruby for a year and a half and she has been such a sweet girl. She has SA issues but we are learning to deal with that. She has been around my grandchildren since day 1 and we have never had any problems. Yesterday the kids were all here for Christmas and it was really chaotic and noisy. The kids are 5, 3, 10 mos and 8 mos. During the craziness of the gift exchange I put Ruby outside (heated dog bed-her normal outside place to go) and I had given her a Valium earlier in the day just because. The older 2 kids had sat beside her and petted her as always and her tail was wagging. After all the hoopla died down and one of the families had left, I let her back and she was laying in her usual spot. The 3 year old was petting her a bit like he always does and she was happy. When the 8 month old started to get near her I noticed her ears perk up. I held onto her collar and told her to be good. All of a sudden she let out a fairly loud growl. The baby had not touched her at all. She knows this baby and has been around her a lot. I immediately told her "NO" in a fairly stern voice and put her outside. Now I don't feel safe having her around the kids at all. She has never ever done this before. I know it was an unusual day but I did try to keep her in her usual routine and let her get away from the noisy part of the day. I can't have her growling at the kids. It just can't happen. Ruby was raised around kids and like I said, has always been around mine with no issues at all. Suggestions on what to do now ?

[galgomum]

Use common sense and be there, every time there are kids around Ruby.

It is a basic rule and prevents trouble.

Ruby gave you a warning, keep that in mind

[Busderpuddle]

I was there and had my hand on her collar when the baby got near. I would NEVER leave her alone with the kids but I was just so shocked that she growled. I have never heard her do that. Usually she is nudging the kids for pets and her tail is wagging 100 miles a minute. Just not sure why she growled this time. I want to stop this before it is a habit.

[Time4ANap]

Ruby gave a warning that she wasn't comfortable with something. Maybe she felt ganged up on with 2 of them there. Was one standing over her? If so, that can be perceived as a threat.

 

Since there is something she isn't comfortable with, a good course of action is to use the same rule that we use with Rocket., which is no petting unless he's standing up. Rocket startles when laying down, and is sometimes protective of his space. Once we figured it out, we only pet him when he's standing,. That way we know he's completely awake, and no one gets growled at or bitten. It also allows him to walk away if he doesn't want to be petted.

 

It's a good idea to reinforce the rule with visitors anytime they enter. We had someone get bitten who knew not to pet him on his bed, but forgot about it until it was too late.

[Batmom]

Could be a combo of the valium and extra excitement. Not sure why you gave the valium? If a dog is under the influence, she's likely to be more tired and therefore possibly a bit crabby and intolerant.

[Guest BrianRke]

I was thinking the same thing as Batmom. When Diamond takes Xanax for her extreme thunderphobia, her personality seems to change a little. She becomes somewhat less tolerant, especially when it starts to wear off.

[GeorgeofNE]

Could be a combo of the valium and extra excitement. Not sure why you gave the valium? If a dog is under the influence, she's likely to be more tired and therefore possibly a bit crabby and intolerant.

 

 

Exactly. My old dog used to take tranquillizers for flying on small planes with me. As he aged, my vet would no longer give him Ace, so he gave me valium. The dog had never been louder on the plane! The vet later told me valium tends to loosen a dog's inhibitions, so a dog already inclined to be loud could easily be louder.

 

She had a busy, stressful day. Next time you have a gang over, just baby gate her into a room where she can see things going on, but the small children cannot approach her.

[TheFullHouse]

If the baby was crawling towards her and she were lying down, they were both at eye level and my guess is baby was looking her straight in the face. I found this made my dogs very uncomfortable and had a couple growl in warning. Babies tend to stare at dogs in the face. Just my experience here.

[JAJ2010]

Could be the meds, but it could also be just that it was towards the end of the day and she was DONE. Be glad she growled. It's a nice loud warning of how she feels w/o anyone needing stitches!

[Guest PhillyPups]

Is there anyway you can babygate her in your bedroom with her favorite toy and bed when the littles are around? I know am cranky after a long day, Ruby could have bitten if that was her intent, she growled, saying "back off little one, I am done for the day.

 

Good that you are there with her all the time, a potential disaster was prevented by your vigilance.

[kudzu]

From my outsider's perspective here is what it all sounds like to me.

 

It was a long day for all. Despite your best efforts on your dog's behalf, things were stressful & disrupted. The dog was drugged & likely still under the effect when brought back into the house. She was laying on her bed after all this when tiny human thing came crawling towards her. You noticed her concern but it sounds like the infant was still approaching when your dog felt suddenly restrained by you holding her collar. So now the object of her concern is still there but the dog is effectively trapped. To add to that she learns her owner is concerned as well because the human is giving warnings, "Be good." Boy, it's been a long day & now the threat level is rising. But instead of fighting or biting your girl gave a warning. Her efforts to communicate were rewarded with being scolded, "NO." Then she was ostracized again.

 

Her growl was apparently a shock to you so the exclamation is understandable from a human perspective but not to your dog. The company is all still there so moving the dog back out is the only safe thing & best for all. To the dog though, it probably didn't seem that way. She'd had a bad day, was dopey & tired, resting on her bed & then things all started going from bad to worse.

 

How many times in the past has your girl had infants crawling up to her while she was laying on her bed? You say she was raised around children. Have you had her from a puppy or do you know the family that raised her from a pup? How old is she?

 

ETA: I really am quite curious as to why the valium in the first place. What is the because in your "just because"?

Edited December 27, 2011 by kudzu

[Guest jbbuzby]

Crawling babies that are fixated sound extremely scary to a dog, let alone one on meds with a hard long day. How many times has your pup seen/been around a mobile infant on all fours? From the dog's perspective, imagine if a child were a dog and a dog were doing this, coming at them relatively slowly with fixation? To top it off, with a hand on collar preventing them from moving and feeling your insecurities on the situation? Also, you telling the dog to "Be good" only reinforce the state of mind she was in (fear/uncertainty) and likely intensified the response...dogs don't really understand "be good"...they understand direct action. The instant the ears perked up, you should have intervened and probably removed the child or relocated the dog to let the dog know you were in control. That way, in the future, she will trust you to handle it and not leave her to feel trapped or on her own.

 

As for children, I'm sure she would still be fine with older children that approach at a pace she is used to and knowing what their intentions are. Babies are very, very hard to read for canines.

[Guest june]

So sorry this happened, but give yourself a pat on the back that you were there and reacted quickly. I agree with everyone that it was probably a busy, tiring day for her and she had enough. They have no way to tell us when they are tired and don't want to be bothered except to get up and leave or growl; you had hold of her collar (which is good thing, but kept her from leaving).

 

Continue to be with the children to supervise and be specially vigilant with the baby which I'm sure you are. One of my girls gets very nervous around babies and I noticed they frequently make strong eye contact. Hang in there the crazy holidays are almost over.

[Busderpuddle]

Thanks for the ideas and advice. I did remove her from most of the chaos of the afternoon but there is no where to baby gate her in the house where she can still see and crating her makes her howl like crazy if someone is here.

I gave her the Valium because the vet told me to if I need to have her in a stressful situation of any kind because she gets kind of nutso and drools and spins. I thought it might help her to deal with all the people but it sounds like I should have been the one to take it. I didn't know it affected them when they are coming off of it. Have never seen a reaction at all from it before.

Yes, she was raised around small children according to the place we got her from and someone on here also told me that they knew who raised her and there were small children there. The other 2 kids were not sitting on her bed when the baby was heading her way, they had moved on. As for how many

times has a crawling baby came up to her while she was laying there ? too many to count and I have always been there and it has never been a problem before.

Appreciate the words of wisdom.

[greysmom]

OK. So no one has said it outright, but I'll give it a shot.

 

Train your kids. Period. The ones who are old enough and the younger ones as they become so. Never leave them alone with the dog. Enforce never petting her when she is laying on her bed. If one of the toddlers starts to toddle towards her, pick them up and move them away.

 

This might seem extreme and like a punishment from your perspective, but Ruby has just shown you she isn't always comfortable, and that she will take matters on herself if needed. You MUST make sure that her intervention is NEVER needed. YOU dn't want her to growl at the kids, so YOU must make sure it's never needed.

 

If baby-gating her isn't an option, get an x-pen and put her in there in as quiet a corner as you have where she can still see everything.

 

Personally, if one of my dogs growls at a visiting child, my assumption is that it's the fault of the humans involved and NOT the dog.

[silverfish]

Could be a combo of the valium and extra excitement. Not sure why you gave the valium? If a dog is under the influence, she's likely to be more tired and therefore possibly a bit crabby and intolerant.

 

Absolutely.

 

 

It was a long day for all. Despite your best efforts on your dog's behalf, things were stressful & disrupted. The dog was drugged & likely still under the effect when brought back into the house. She was laying on her bed after all this when tiny human thing came crawling towards her. You noticed her concern but it sounds like the infant was still approaching when your dog felt suddenly restrained by you holding her collar. So now the object of her concern is still there but the dog is effectively trapped. To add to that she learns her owner is concerned as well because the human is giving warnings, "Be good." Boy, it's been a long day & now the threat level is rising. But instead of fighting or biting your girl gave a warning. Her efforts to communicate were rewarded with being scolded, "NO." Then she was ostracized again.

 

 

Yep. Poor Ruby. She's not feeling quite herself because of the Valium and it's a horribly stressful day for her. She's also been put out by herself (sensible precaution and better for Ruby, I'm just trying to show you the situation from her point of view), and just when she thinks it's all over and she's been let back in to lie on her own bed in her own place and is starting to relax, a very threatening looking small human fixes both eyes on her and crawls determinedly toward her. Then she's restrained and gets a verbal warning. Hate to sound harsh, but what did you expect her to do?

 

A growl is a dog's last warning that she's had enough. It's a good warning. One thing you do NOT want to do, particularly when you have small children around, is to stop her giving that warning. What you DO want to do is ...

 

 

Train your kids.

 

Fact of life. Unless you are really lucky and have a totally bomb-proof dog (which you know you don't have), you must train your children up in good behaviour around dogs or the dog will do it for you. They do this with the following, in exactly this order:

 

1) body language - various signals which mean 'I've had enough now go away and stop bothering me'

 

2) attempt to escape to a safe location

 

3) a warning growl

 

4) a warning nip. Unfortunately, humans are fragile from a dog's perspective and children's faces are often at tooth level so this warning often causes physical damage, especially since a dog's reflexes are way faster than a child's.

 

Teach your children to recognise the signals that mean a dog is getting stressed and tired of the attention (if you don't know them yourself, bone up on them now). Teach them also never, EVER to bother your dog on her bed. Many dogs will accept being approached on their bed and be perfectly fine, but you have a nervous nellie to start with so to my mind everyone will stay a lot safer if this rule is strictly followed. To be honest, I'm not sure why you were allowing the baby to crawl onto or toward Ruby's bed since you knew she wasn't going to be too happy about it?

 

You can bring a dog into your family and - with training - have a perfect family pet who will behave beautifully around your children, but you cannot take basic dog behaviour out of that dog. To get that perfect family pet you need to educate your dog, but you also need to educate yourselves and your children to understand that behaviour.

 

The thing to learn from this situation is this:

 

Ruby would certainly have done 1 - I have never seen an anxious dog who wasn't extremely good at giving body language warnings. But you may have missed '1' ... OK, it happens, but then you physically stopped her doing '2', so she moved up to 3. The good thing is that you were there to stop her escalating to 4.

 

You can't expect a dog to put up with all the crap children hand out, all the time. It's up to you to manage the situation. Even the most tolerant dog has its breaking point and when that comes, you want your children to recognise it and STOP what they're doing, and you want your dog to growl first, not bite first. Teach your children to know that they must always stop and go right away if they hear a growl. Every, single, time. As they get older, teach them the other signals too, so they can stop before the dog even gets to this point.

 

And, by the way, these rules do not apply just to greyhounds. There are breeds who are more tolerant of children, but there are also many, many breeds who are less tolerant. And they all - without exception - give the same signals and warnings to a greater or lesser degree, and they all need the same training.

Edited December 27, 2011 by silverfish

[Guest BlueCrab]

You've gotten lots of good advice so I won't repeat. Only thing I don't think I saw mentioned that I will add: a growl is a good warning. Don't punish a growl. If you punish, and thus discourage, a growl, the next thing you may end up with is a bite without that warning. Don't want to get to that point.

 

Sorry it happened, but the holidays are really crazy and she may indeed have just had enough. Their likes and tolerances change with age: something she's tolerated seemingly well in the past may have become something she doesn't like so much now.

[Fruitycake]

I won't repeat anything here, but have to say that I would have been feeling much the same way as she was and I'd have probably growled too (busy days, chaotic schedules, lots of people = just too much for me and I want everything to just go back to normal!). She may be absolutely bombproof in less intensely stressful situations but she'd had enough and told you so.

 

Glad you got a vocal warning instead of a physical rebuff from her!

[Busderpuddle]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I am going to be taking Ruby in the 2nd week in Jan to get blood work done again and re-check her thyroid. There was an issue with it when we first got her, had her on thyroid meds but made her SA much worse. She also needs her routine shots and I just want to make sure all is well. I am sure she had just had enough. I know that I had.

[silverfish]

I am sure she had just had enough. I know that I had.

 

And that was probably also a factor.

 

Dogs are incredibly sensitive to your mood. Since coming to live with you, she will have learned to take her lead from you and rely on your strength. She will know that you are the one who runs the home. So the fact that her newly acquired 'head honcho' was frazzled will certainly have influenced her behaviour.

 

She probably felt panicky when you, too, appeared to be nervous about the baby approaching.

 

You know how we hide our fears for our young children so as not to make them more fearful of scary situations? Might be worth trying the same trick with Ruby. Dogs are harder to fool than babies, but it will help to keep her a little calmer.

[Busderpuddle]

silverfish-you are right, we do try to hide our fears from our kids but I wasn't feeling fearful at the time, just being cautious. I never in a million years thought she would growl or hurt the baby since she has never shown that behavior before. But now I know so will treat the situations differently.

Thanks.