My husband and I have our dog who is our world. She’s almost 6, and she’s overall very well trained. She loves human and has never been aggressive towards adults; however, she is not a huge fan of other dogs. She’ll tolerate them but she will start a few fights here and there. She’s had no experience with children until recently.
We have a nephew who is 1.5 years old. Our dog has VERY limited exposure to children – she’s been around him before a few times although we kept them separated. Today, we knew we’d have our nephew over briefly, so I put our dog (medium to large size) outside with our sliding glass door shut. Our dog was a little caught off guard as my FIL and nephew entered our house (normal for her to bark when visitors arrive). Our nephew walked to the glass door pressing his hands against the glass, and our dog very aggressively lunged and barked at the baby in fear. If there had been no glass, I’m not positive our nephew wouldn’t have been hurt. This is the second time I’ve seen our dog do this to a child.
I am extremely concerned. I love our dog SO much. She’s overall such a good girl, but this is very concerning, and the idea of rehoming her breaks my heart; however, I will always do what I have to do to protect my baby no matter what. I’m due in 5 months. Should we seek professional help? Is this something we could potentially train out of a dog? Even if we did trust her, I would never ever leave my child on the ground around ANY dog, but I’m just so conflicted as to what we should do.
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