Border collie doesn’t like people hugging and becomes ‘angry’ when small children get picked up

Border collie becomes ‘aggressive’ when young children are picked up OR people hug

Hi!

Close family members have a border collie (age 8) that they’ve owned since a puppy.

They got her when my youngest child was 12 months old.

We noticed after a few years that whenever someone would pick up my toddler, the dog would ‘go for her’ in a very automatic way.

For the dogs entire life (or as long as we can remember!) when ANYONE around her hugs, she will bark endlessly. It’s very frustrating.

There was one instance my youngest child was picked up and the dog just went for her, luckily only leaving marks, because the relative grabbed the dog off her very quickly.

Other than this… she’s a lovely dog. No issues.

Is she trying to ‘roundup’ small children the same as she would with sheep? Like, what’s going on inside the dogs head? For us to understand.

My current concern is, I’m expecting another baby. Due soon. The baby will OBVIOUSLY be held by multiple people, most of the time, and rocked to sleep, in arms, etc.

How do we navigate this and keep everyone safe without taking risks?

We already have to ensure the dog has been put into a separate room when hellos and goodbyes are done (hugs!) because she will just bark and bark and bark and it ruins it and everyone gets stressed with the noise. So she goes into another room and *then* the hellos and goodbyes can happen.

I don’t want my baby to get mauled, or anything to happen meaning danger to baby or the dog end up being put down. Hence making this post to get input.

Thank you (pregnant and fragile so kind constructive replies only please 🙏🏻)