Shocking behavior...

[SincereArtisan]

Rune bit a kid tonight.

 

No, she did not draw blood. I did not see it, either. I heard the kid hollering, turned, and Rune was slinking off to hide behind a cooler. I know how it happened...the kid was being slung around and around by her dad, and I'd looked over to catch Rune circling once or twice. But she'd never get near the kid, really, just eyed her warily.

 

Well, apparently she darted in and nipped the girl in the leg. The dad thinks that the girl's feet might have clipped her, but I know my dog better than that. A mistakened kick would have sent her scurrying, but the eye she was giving the twirling girl earlier makes me lean towards her overreacting at the situation. Had I known she would actually make a move on the kid, I'd have called her to me and put her in a down-stay. But she has never, ever, ever, EVER shown the inclination to bring her mouth into a situation. She rarely even gives kids the eye to begin with. They ply with running, screaming, hollering children all the time. I had just shrugged it off as her being puzzled by what all the squealing was about with the kid being spun around.

 

Mortified, I grabbed her quick. We had a little come to jesus meetin' all the way to the car, where she spent the rest of the night until we wet home. It was the best I could do for the moment, I was livid. Tomorrow, we're going to do some on-leash training around some kid-packed playgrounds. I deem this sort of thing completely unacceptable, and I'm determined to stop it before it progresses further.

[WyoBC]

That is strange. Something would have had to happen for her to move towards the kid. Maybe it was the moving like you said. Maybe something just caught her right to make her do it. When I run with Black Jack he never tries to nip me. But one time I was running and crossed in front of him (like I have done a lot) and he did nip at me. It wasn't by any means aggressive. He just got in the moment. I had a talk with him and he hasn't done it since. Do you know for sure she nipped the girl? Some people think that a close snap of the teeth is a bite.

[MaggieDog]

Umm you do realize your dog probably had no idea what your "come to jesus meeting" was all about right? The delay between the nip and your reaction was likely long enough to confuse her.

 

Maggie has darted after kids before because of the fast movement and so we work a lot on stays with lots of motion, eye contact in hectic situations, etc. but I never have her around kids in general because I know she's uncomfortable with them. I'd say your best bet is some desensitizing around kids (especially if she connects your "meeting" with kids vs. her response to moving kids), good stay exercises, and just managing her around children in the future.

 

Yea what she did was not acceptable but you now have more info about how your dog reacts to strong stimuli and can work around that in the future. Dogs are dogs, they chase fast moving objects, especially if they screech.

[OurBoys]

I agree what Rune did was unacceptable but how often has Rune been around a parent that was slinging their child around? Look at it from Rune's veiw point. A large human had a smaller human under physical control. With smaller human screaming, it might have looked like larger human was 'correcting' smaller human.

 

I wasn't there but I feel you just need to train Rune that what she saw was just a normal human playtime. And odd type of playtime for her but one she can still accept as normal in humans.

[SincereArtisan]

Umm you do realize your dog probably had no idea what your "come to jesus meeting" was all about right? The delay between the nip and your reaction was likely long enough to confuse her.

 

I pounced on her directly after I heard the kid holler, and I saw her slink away, doing her best to avoid my eye contact. She'd definitely gotten the gist that what she'd just done was wrong, and she was by no means proud of it. I took the time to apologize to the dad of the kid, and checked to be sure she was ok, before heading to the car with her, verbally scolding her the whole way. Thats pretty much what our come to jesus meeting consisted of.

 

This caught me so off guard because she LOVES kids. Both of my BCs do. Kids throw balls longer than adults, after all, and they turn into wriggly happy goo when children approach. I've seen her eyeball a kid skateboarding, and maybe a yelling running child here and there, but they could almost be categorized as looks of disbelief. I know different, now. And yes, we will be working on desensitizing.

[Dixie_Girl]

We aquired a shepard/collie mix pup when my son was 5. This dog was very good around people, kids or adults. My son and Bandit were very bonded. After Bandit became an adult, I found that he was also protective. Not just of my son, but anyone. If he saw two strangers and one was attacking the other, he would go in for the attacker, or at least what he percieved as the attacker. One time my son was playing with a young man (about 22) in the front yard. Bandit had been around the guy and his wife and young baby with never a growl. Well, this one day, the play got to where they were play hitting each other. When the guy went to "hit" my son with some foam thingy, Bandit bit the guy on his side. He immediately stopped, Bandit sat looking at him like, ok, we clear now, you don't hit the boy. The guy reached down and petted Bandit. Thank God the guy was understanding. I got all this info from him! After that, Bandit was never allowed around when my son had friends over. He just didn't know the dif between play and real. He never showed any sign whatsoever of aggression except under those circumstances. And even then, it was like 'real" aggression, more like correction. This was many years ago, and I never thought of "training" it out of him. Rather I controled the situations Bandit was in. With Rune never seeing this behaviour between people, it's quite possible she just didn't know what was going on. I seriously doubt it was any act of aggression. Perhaps just her way of trying to control what she seen as something out of control. JMO, of course.

[lance]

We aquired a shepard/collie mix pup when my son was 5. This dog was very good around people, kids or adults. My son and Bandit were very bonded. After Bandit became an adult, I found that he was also protective. Not just of my son, but anyone. If he saw two strangers and one was attacking the other, he would go in for the attacker, or at least what he percieved as the attacker. One time my son was playing with a young man (about 22) in the front yard. Bandit had been around the guy and his wife and young baby with never a growl. Well, this one day, the play got to where they were play hitting each other. When the guy went to "hit" my son with some foam thingy, Bandit bit the guy on his side. He immediately stopped, Bandit sat looking at him like, ok, we clear now, you don't hit the boy. The guy reached down and petted Bandit. Thank God the guy was understanding. I got all this info from him! After that, Bandit was never allowed around when my son had friends over. He just didn't know the dif between play and real. He never showed any sign whatsoever of aggression except under those circumstances. And even then, it was like 'real" aggression, more like correction. This was many years ago, and I never thought of "training" it out of him. Rather I controled the situations Bandit was in. With Rune never seeing this behaviour between people, it's quite possible she just didn't know what was going on. I seriously doubt it was any act of aggression. Perhaps just her way of trying to control what she seen as something out of control. JMO, of course.

 

Dixie.....My Bandit also is protective, not just to me, but when other dogs are fighting he tries to break it up!

 

Lance

[mbc1963]

Wow - I'm sorry that happened. I know how very upsetting something like this is.

 

My dog is really reactive, though better now than when I got him. On many occasions, I've seen him seem "fine" and then suddenly move into police mode, trying to correct another dog by driving it off with vicious looking teeth, or actually pinning the other dog. Over time, I've learned that a whole lot of visual and auditory stimulus seems to pile up in Buddy, until he can't take it anymore. So, too much noise or too much action from dogs, and I make sure he's sitting right by me.

 

I've spent a lot of time bringing Buddy near children and making happy sounds when we see them, and if they're calm, letting them give Buddy treats gently and slowly. But I can't take a chance of having Buddy loose around kids who are making any kind of unpredictable or unexpected motion or noise. I think he'd run away, but then again, he might see them as animals and try to "correct." I'm not sure there's a point you can get to where a dog will be absolutely rock-solid when faced with motions and noises he doesn't recognize... though I've seen some dogs who come as close as I can imagine.

 

Anyway - you had never seen this before, and had no way of knowing it would happen. Now you have an education about Rune and the way she looks and acts around kids when she's feeling uncomfortable, so you can work to monitor and control her exposure. I bet if you study her closely, while exposing her to various situations, you'll be able to read her body language and mindset pretty closely, and simply protect her from reaching her threshold. From what you describe, she's got a very high threshold to begin with.

 

My experience with my dog has shown me that it's really pretty easy to manage him around crowds and wild dogs now that I know what to expect. It was the not knowing that created all my problems!

 

Good luck!

 

Mary

[mjk05]

I think the key was probably the kid being slung around. I'm all for dogs being controlled at parks, but its probably tempting fate to do that sort of thing if there are lots of strange dogs around. From the dog's perspective the little girl probably looked like a great game with a big squealy tug toy.

 

Our dogs spend heaps of time with my toddler son, and are really as good as dogs can be, they are gentle with him, offer him toys, take care not to knock him down, he's learnt to walk holding onto them. I trust them completely with him. But if we're giving Jack a "whizzy dizz" and swinging him around, and there's lots of movement and squealing, I have to keep a close on eye on some of them, especially the younger, more prey-driven ones, because they start to race around with that wild hyped up look in their eye and I wouldn't want them to try to join in the fun with their teeth.

 

They do get better if they spend more time with kids, they learn to control themselves and that teeth and kids never mix (the same way they have learned that Jack's wobbly on his feet and they can't bump him over). You don't need to panic that she's kid-aggressive, its more a matter of getting her used to kids moving fast and squealing, and getting her to use some self control in those situations.

[Sue R]

I have only a moment to comment here but I find your dog's behavior rather predictable in this instance, as several people have pointed out that they have seen similar reactions from their dogs. I wouldn't call it shocking, although I understand that you were shocked and upset.

 

The time to have prevented the problem was when you saw your dog eyeing the girl and her father. That was when it was obvious that the game captured her interest and that was the time for you to act, not later.

 

Border Collies would not be the only breed that might act like yours did under the circumstances. There are "reactive dogs" and there are dogs that "react" naturally to what is happening around them. Just because your dog responded in a pretty normal way *for a dog* to very stimulating circumstances, doesn't make your dog a "reactive dog". It makes you an owner that needs to foresee what might happen and take steps to avoid it before it happens. She may have been joining in the game initially or trying to break up a situation that disturbed her - who knows?

 

Something similar to this happened to me when I was a child. An adult was playing tag with us children and my Border Collie, who was protective like some others to the extent of trying to break up play fights between total strangers, nipped his ankle as he pursued the children. Back in the days before everything was somebody else's fault and a potential matter for litigation, we all realized it was no real harm done, we needed to do something else for fun, and the dog was doing what a good dog would do (after all, if one of us was being pursued by someone with ill intent, we would have praised the dog as a hero).

 

Thank goodness your dog's involvement was with a sensible person and not someone ready to throw around the blame and call a lawyer or the police for a "dangerous dog", which yours isn't. Work on the desensitizing and remember that no animal is truly "bomb-proof" but that you will need to be reading the situation and your dog, and taking precautions before anything happens.

 

Best wishes!

[Tranquilis]

Tomorrow, we're going to do some on-leash training around some kid-packed playgrounds. I deem this sort of thing completely unacceptable, and I'm determined to stop it before it progresses further.

Correct response.

Somehow, I think you've got a good handle on it.