We love our OES, but we need help
We have 3 kids. Daughter 23, recently married, lives nearby. Son 20, lives nearby. Son 17, lives with us. My 20 year old visits often along with his girlfriends young son. What we have noticed is Curtis seems to be jealous of any young children. He has shown aggressive behavior to son's potential stepson. He has shown same aggressive behavior to 2 of my young nephews along with my youngest son's girlfriend. I am beginning to say this is a trend rather than just an infrequent occurance. What should we do? |
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| Immediately, ensure that Sir Curtis is not in the same space, even for a few moments, with any young child. I want to stress that all dogs always need to be supervised with young children--period. In this case, I would not want to take a chance that your OES would suddenly act on his jealousy and harm a young child. Make sure that your dog is secured before having young children around.
You really, truly do need to consult an expert in dog behavior ASAP, to evaluate your dog and to guide you in making some intelligent decisions. It would be best if you could find someone who is experienced working with OES and who loves the breed. I say this having raised 4 OES, the first of whom we acquired when our children were 13, 9, 6 and 4 years old. Merlin was terrific with all of our children, as have our other OES been. He and Archie, the only 2 of my dogs to have known her, were also excellent with my disabled mother who had balance problems and dementia, before she passed away. OES can be wonderful family members who are able to interact with individuals of all ages and abilities, but no breed is perfectly suited: any breed can have individual dogs who don't do well with certain sorts of situations. Generally speaking, most dogs do best with small children if they have been raised around small children. |
| I agree. Curtis puts himself higher in pack order than the kids. He has to learn he is lower. He can have many leaders, not just you. A good trainer will help you be a true pack leader that can put Curtis in a calm submissive position and then allow each of the children to start leadership roles by feeding, walking Curtis on leash, etc. You have to be the one in charge, calmy in charge, so the first mammal trained will be you. Once you understand your role, you will be responsible for training the others. In the mean time, as said above, Curtis is not to be alone with these other people.
You might want to spring for Cesar Milan's CD/DVD as it will show you how you need to behave before Curtis can be reeducated. Thank you for taking this boy in, but the work isn't over. |
Quote: I am beginning to say this is a trend rather than just an infrequent occurance.
If you're seeing the potential for a dog biting a child, please consider bringing in a professional trainer or behaviorist to help you address the problem one-on-one. If a bite occurs, you may not get a second chance to try to correct the problem. |
| Hello there, and thank you for rescuing a dog.
First of all, dogs do not feel "jealousy". That is a human emotion. What your dog is displaying is fearful behavior. If he was not raised with young children in a postivie fashion, he does not know what a child is. They are small, move eratically and make strange shounds. They are scarey...plain and simple...So he is reacting in defense or trying to scare them away. You need to contact a behaviorist and get him on a desensatisation program. This is not something that you can get advice from over the internet as the dog and the program must be viewed in person, and tweaked as it developes. In the meantime please keep him away form children, and do not allow him to be frightened by them or get scolded or punished in any way around them...as that will just make things worse. Good luck. know, si showi |
Quote: First of all, dogs do not feel "jealousy". That is a human emotion
As a sidebar, I have to say that I disagree. Dogs do feel jealousy or act jealous anyways, --if another person or another dog is getting attention they want, they at least act jealous: they try to insert themselves between the dog/person who is receiving the attention they want and the person dispensing the attention/affection. At least mine do. It's competitive/desire for status, which is really, a form of jealousy, even amongst humans. I agree that dogs who aren't used to children are often fearful or at least insecure around them: children's behavior and noises can be unpredictable if you aren't used to them, even for humans, but especially with dogs. This is one reason I made a special effort to make sure my pups were around children as much as possible as often as possible when I acquired puppies after my own children reached young adulthood. |
| My wife and I appreciate all of your comments and will take them all under consideration. Even before I started this thread, we took steps to make sure he does not come in contact with the young ones. Any time the young kids visit, he is inside if they are outside and vice versa. The safety of the children is a number one priority. Not sure yet what direction we will go, but we do realize the seriousness of the situation.
I will post developments as they occur. This is not exactly what I had in mind as a first thread!!! |
tmack83 just want to say welcome to the forum. 
Young childrens safety is paramount with any dog that is not use to young children previously. You have a lot a work ahead, but with good training you should be able to work through this problem in time. 
And yes in the meantime, keep them well apart as it takes only one unexpected nip to cause serious damage. No together till trust is there and that will take work and patients over a period of time.
You will get there, just take slow steps with the dog, hard to know what happened in the past before he showed up on your farm as to why the dog is that way with young children. Wishing you all the best and look forward to hearing how the dog progresses around young children. Hopefully all good |
| I spoke to a trainer the same day as my last post, Dec 27. She recommended we make sure something good happens for Curtis whenever one of the young children shows up, i.e.: play tug; give him a treat, etc.
So far we have not had a repeat as far as youngsters are concerned. What he has done in the last week is; he snapped at my 17 year old when he reached over him to get something off the bed. Curtis sleeps in the same room as the 17 year old most nights. They are very close. He also snapped at the lady who cleans house for us every two weeks. She has been with us longer than Curtis so she is no stranger. She also is a dog lover & plays tug with him whenever he wants to. She went to dust the bed room he was in and he snapped at her. If Curtis were old & in pain I would understand more clearly what was going on. The reality is, he is only 4 years old and in good overall health.  |
| It sounds like this is new behavior and has had a rather sudden onset, it could be a medical issue, maybe a trip to the vet for a check up would be a good idea. |
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