Our dog bit my DS

I am talking a deep deep bite, not requiring stitches, but a deep bite none the less. It was no provoked at ll, DS was just sitting and playing as I was hanging the washing on the line... the dog was barking and carrying on at the neighbors dog, then just bit, out of the blue.

She is a gorgeous little dog, and I would be very sad to see her go, but I am giving her one more chance. If she bites again, she has to go.

Not sure if I am thinking this out of anger, am I over reacting?

What would you do?

Oh, she is a Foxy x Shih tzu

I don't think I would wait for the second bite. Call the RSPCA and ask for professional advice perhaps?

I wouldn't be waiting for a second bite, I'm afraid. Once they've bitten, that's it.

I personally wouldnt wait for another chance... if ur dog goes at your ds again then it could be alot worse. You say it wasnt provoked... what will happen if ur ds does provoke ur dog by stepping on its tail or something? What would ur dog do then?

I would try and rehome your pet..

I totally understand your attachment to the dog, but I would not be giving her another chance. Not worth it
Your child is worth infinitely more than your dog.

As tough as it is, I would probably not give another chance.

As much as you love/adore the dog, I am sure you love your DS more.

Good luck with your decision, thinking of you

Either rehome or euthanase i would say. Happened once, what is to say it won't happen again and this time much worse. Unprovoked? sounds like jealousy to me. Has she shown any signs before? Honestly, I know you love your dogs, but I would think of how you would feel if something worse happened.

Also, it seems that your dog does not see your son as being higher in the pack than she which is a real problem. Your dog should know that its place in the pack is below your son and therefore should not bite him because he is "inferior" to your son. That she did bite, makes me question how she thinks of her place in your pack.

Sorry one bite is one bite too many as far as I'm concerned. My child is far too important to me no matter how strongly I feel for my pet.

Good luck

In all honesty, my first though was "she has got to go" - Then I thought it through, she has never ever done anything like that before, we got her as a young pup... she is around 10 months old now...

But I think you ladies have confirmed my first thought was the right one.

I love the dog, she is gorgeous... but pales in comparison to my son.

Thanks ladies. Am off to find a way to re-home her.

If it was a provoked bite, then maybe I would give a second chance. However seen as it was unprovoked, I would try and get someone to rehome the dog with someone without young children.

It is a hard thing to have to do and I don't know exactly how you are feeling, but have an idea as we had to have our dog put down after she killed my daughters first dog.

Going by this I'm assuming she bit your son in all the craziness.

I would give her another chance - I would say that she didn't realise what she was doing and bit him because of the other dog. If this is out of character to her then I wouldn't get rid of her or have her put to sleep, I would however keep an eye on her and like all animals never leave her alone with the kids.

If she was going nuts maybe her brain turned off for a minute and thought your child was another dog. My dogs do this to each other all the time. WHen my dogs are going nuts I aways remind my DD's to stay away as they may get bitten in the maddness. My girls ahve been jumped on in the frenzy and barked at bitten not so sure, mind you I get out of their way when they go mad as they draw blood on each other.

I know have been bitten as I tried to calm them down and they forgot it was me. I didn;t put them down for that. I just remembered next time use my voice or stay clear until their brains turn back on.

I am a dog person and if it was an attack yes I would let her sleep forever but it may not have been. Not every bite has an hidden agenda sometimes dogs do get caught up the moment just like humans.

As Twilight Zone said dont' let her stay alone with the dogs.

But the OP's child was not alone with the dog to start with.

I wouldn't be putting the dog to sleep, but I would be rehoming it.

Ok... tested the water, DS was having a sleep whilst I posted.

We both went outside, as well as my older daughters, Dog saw DS and snarled. whether it be because I growled hat her (the dog) for what she did, or what, I don't know.

But I am now incredibly uneasy.

Children under the age of 12 are not seen as being above other dogs in the pack, because they are still classed as puppies. Therefore, the dog will seek guidence on how to behave around puppies from other pack members.

The likihood of you rehoming your dog is slim, given that it has now bit a child. I would seek the professional help of a trainer. If you do not wish to go down that avenue, I think PTS is a humane option, any shelter you take the dog to who would even accept will more than likely go down that road.

OP, I am sorry to say but you have a problem.

Your dog is not trustworthy with members of your family, and if she is willing to snarl at someone in your presence, then you aren't perceived as her 'boss' either.

As the dog is now not suitable to be rehomed with young children (shows aggression and has bitten), you will have greater difficulty in rehoming it.

So that leaves you with two choices - isolate the dog so that it cannot access the children (fence it into a separate area), and use a soft cloth muzzle on the dog whenever it is in the main part of the yard (safety first). Get a professional behavioural trainer to come in and work with you and your dog.

The second choice is to put the dog to sleep. You may find yourself having to do this, even if you try retraining, because sometimes it just doesn't work no matter how much effort you make.

I wish you well for your decisions - it will be hard to make.

Hmm.. the thing is she was unprovoked.

You can understand them snapping if the kid is yanking on their tail or hurting them but if it's unprovoked then I think thats a big problem.

Definitely re-home or pass onto an organization that can get them trained and assess whether they are able to be re-homed.

Sounds like she has "i'm the boss" sort of issues.

The snarling afterwards sounds pretty drastic.

I would listen to someone like spikey8 who is a trainer or get someone in if you have doubts.

Good luck

I did what I should have done in the first place, and rang our Vet.

The dog tried to jump up at DS after snarling, and I was there. I felt sick.

Discussions with the Vet saw me taking her to be PTS.

I feel AWFUL. Utterly sick to the stomach.

But I know I made the right decision, I could not re-home her after this. I would forever be worried.

The Vets we wonderful, I had no choice but to take all 3 Children with me, so one of the Vet nurses stayed with the kids in the car, whilst I went in. as far as the girls are concerned, the dog is finding a new home.

Thankyou so much for the input, I appreciate it. I apologise if my final decision was against what some would do, but after consulting with the Vet, and that was sadly the best option.

Well done for making a very tough, but right decision

Thinking of you tonight

Even though its heartbreaking I think you did the correct thing.
Your dog seemed really unstable and in my opinion not a candidate for rehoming.
If he was provoked in to biting then I would have supported the pup being rehomed with a family with no children but this was not the case.

Unpredictable aggression like that needs a committed trainer, these sort of people are very hard to find and even then these dogs will still be hard to rehome.

I have also gone through what you had to do and totally understand how you are feeling .

I'm so sorry, what an awful thing to go through. For what it's worth, I think you made the right decision, but I know I would be heart broken if I was in the same position

Even though you logically know you did the right thing, it still is an awful decision to have to make. So sorry you had to go through this

I am so sorry.

So sorry that it had to come to this but you did do the right thing.

It was obviously more than just a snap because she was excited - the aggression shown towards your DS without any cause was disturbing.

i am sorry it came to this .We also had a dog that we had for 3 years before her first bite ,she bit my ds ,I had her on a diet at the time and she thought he had food (or so we think) The rspca gave us some great advise on re-training which we folowed but unfortunately she bit him again for no apparent reason.The rspca said she now saw him as an easy target and very low pack member after the first incident .The rspca put her to sleep.We took the chance on our dog and our son suffered ,I believe you made a good choice on this one.

Thinking of you......

That must have been a very difficult thing for you to do, and for the kids.

So sorry. You did the right thing though.

That must've been a terribly hard decision to make and very difficult to go through with..

But you know you did the right thing.. snarling at your DS didn't sound like a very good sign when he clearly didn't do anything to provoke the bite.

At least now you can rest easy knowing that your children are safe and won't be seriously hurt.

When I was about 12, a friends dog was following us around and as I went to hop in the car it started growling then jumped up and bit me on the ribs. Completely unprovoked and it was put down as it kind of went insane and started snarling at everyone.

So yeh.. unfortunately it does happen..

Thinking of you. I hope you and the kids are ok. You know you made the right decision so I hope with time you feel a little more at ease with it.

After you wrote the extra bit. I do agree with what you did. Although hard it was the best thing. I thought it was different from what you first posted but the added bit made it make sense.

I am sorry for your loss.

What a horrible decision to make. Thinking of you

no second chance here at all if it was my kids

sorry you had to go through this, very hard

I am so sorry for your loss.

A vet actually told me that there has been quite an increase in this behaviour from small dog crosses like shih tzu crosses and maltese crosses- particularly ones bought from pet shops. The woman across the road had to put one of her maltese X down the other day for similar reasons and now her other shih tzu X dog has developed serious health problem at 7.

It's a heart breaking decision to have to make but I think you know you did the right thing as hard as it was. Please take good care of yourself

I'm very sorry you've had to go through this

But I believe you did the right thing (((((hugs)))))

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Hi OP,

I'm very sorry to hear your doggy had to be PTS, but I totally support your decision to do so. While I love dogs, I believe that the safety of your human family is still paramount.

If you decide to go with an alternative pet later on, please don't hesitate to ask. There are some very informed people on this forum, and we will try our best to help.