Hi, Looking for some advice please. We have a beautiful 14 month old red lab, Eddie, he is very full of energy and with a tendency to play quite roughly with other dogs (pinning and mouthing etc) but very loving and friendly with us at home. He is a big dog - 30kg. On Thursday we had a bit of a horrible incident with him though which has left us feeling very worried. Our family - myself, husband and 3 children took him out for a short walk and we were in a field picking blackberries - Eddie was off the lead and just pottering around, the kids were messing around separately to us and Eddie. My 13 yo son walked into the middle of the field (we were at the edge) and called Eddie to him, Eddie ran really fast to him and then I called him back to me really just as it seemed a good opportunity to practise his recall as he is not 100% with this. Eddie was obviously excited and was runnung between us really fast but after we had done this a couple of times when he reached my son he started jumping and biting him, he pulled at his clothes and ripped his top and grazed his lower back and legs with his teeth. We were shouting at him to stop and come but he was totally lost in the moment and I had to run over and pull him off my son, Eddie calmed down pretty quickly after that and has been normal since then. When he was jumping and biting he wasn't growling. My son, like all of us was shocked and upset and thankfully not badly hurt in any way. We are all totally gutted and I am not sure where to go from here. I can't think of any reason for him behaving like this apart from over-excitement - we didn't have a ball or any toy with us so he wasn't trying to get anything. We weren't playing any rough and tumble game, it was literally just calling him from one of us to the other - no trigger that I can think of. If it had been a smaller child (my son is a a bit taller than me) or someone we didn't know things could have been really awful. I'm not sure what to do - it may just have been a one-off but I can't risk it happening when myself and my husband are not around. As my older two are 13 and 15 they sometimes need to be alone with him after school if I'm not back from work. I know this is probably impossible to advise on without seeing what happened but if anyone has experienced something similar I'd love to hear what happened, I would hope that this is a one-off incident but i will never know if it will happen again. I will have him checked over by the vet this week to check nothing is wrong and have also contacted our trainer who is also a behaviourist but not heard back as yet. As time passes I think maybe I am over-reacting but then I remember how scared my son was and I think if he hadn't been wearing a fairly thick hoody which now has big holes in it, he would have more than just grazes on his back and sides. thanks
Hi Jenny and welcome to the forum. I think it's very sensible to have Eddie checked over by your vet and also to talk to your trainer/behaviourist about the incident, but in all likelihood, it was just over-excitement from the game you were playing with him. I would just try to keep an eye on his body language when playing and, if it looks like he's getting too riled up, change to a calm game. Shouting at him to stop may well have made him even more excited. To be honest, if it was just excitement, the thick clothing might have actually made the likelihood of grazing higher, as it would have been harder for Eddie to judge compared to bare skin. Not that I'm saying your son should be wandering around in unseasonal attire, but I wouldn't focus on the "what if he wasn't wearing thick clothing" aspect. Eddie is still really a puppy brain in an adult body and they can be a bit daft at this age. Sometimes that exuberance is a bit OTT, so learning ways of restoring calm before the pressure valve goes off would certainly help diffuse the situation. Ask your behaviourist to help you identify the signs that he might be getting a bit too riled up and about to transition into Mr Hyde.
From what you've described it sounds as though he was just very very overexcited. It doesn't sound like aggression at all! My dog is nearly 17 months and has done it to me a few times where he jumps up and bites at my sleeves etc if he's gone into mental mode. I have always just distracted him with some easy training to get his focus back on me. I would say if he gets to that level of excitement around your children again before it happens try and put him on his lead and calm him down. I'd also try and stop your children engaging in particularly boisterous play with him, just nice calm behaviour and reward Eddie for playing nicely. Soon enough he'll be grown up and will be able to control himself a bit better
I agree that it's most likely over excitement. My 11 month old can get like this occasionally, always when she's over excited and mostly with my 12 year old son.
I agree with Jen and Fiona - I clearly remember that age for Brogan, and he had a few "What the holy heck?" moments himself. Granted - not a Lab - but still. As Jen and Fiona have said, working with him on calm behaviour and being aware of when he may be working himself into such an excited state so you can nip it in the bud are likely all you need.
Thanks all for your comments, they are very reassuring- in my gut I'm pretty sure it was just over-excitement although it seemed to come from out of the blue - in hindsight, he was running much, much faster than we have ever seen before which in future will of course be a sign that he may be getting too excited. My main concern is not knowing if this might happen when I am not around, the kids know not to play rough games with him - in the field we were essentially just calling him between us, which I wouldn't have classed as an overly rough game, he is a very excitable dog though..... how long till he grows out of this stage....?!!
I think you'll see a lot of difference between 2 and 3, there have been a few posts on here recently about 3 year olds seeming to be much calmer in general past this age. Sorry if this still seems a long way, but keep up the training and having a strategy to calm him down will help you in the shorter term too. Could you get the children involved with some indoor brain games, or trick training which is loads of fun and will tire him out mentally?
I had this happen quite a few times with my GSD and I read up on it as it really upset me. It probably happened about a dozen times over 18 months - maybe less. She just would not stop biting me and in the end I just had to hold her away from me and put her in a cage - even if I was on a walk and had to get back to the car. This was the advice I found on the internet that worked for me - nothing else did. However I also found out it is a problem with a lot of breeds and one they do grow out of. If this is the first time your dog has behave like this then it does not sound like you have a problem but still go for the vet check and a good dog trainer. With my dog it happened when she got over tired e.g. I took her to a dog show at 6 months old and we messed around for about 3 hours. She was really good and then suddenly she just started jumping up and biting at me. Just too long out - like anyone really
Hi @Jenny100, I have recently had a spell of this behaviour with my young lab. I decided to keep a record of when it happened so I could start to work out what triggered it, and I kept it in the training log , a thread called Cassie's stop mugging me log, if you'd like to read it. It isn't very nice I know, but it really sounds like over excitement.
Yes, it probably is over-excitement. Wispa also did this a few times when she was younger (she's now five) but seems to have outgrown it, although she had a bit of a 'mad moment' recently in the garden with me. It would be best for your older two to avoid rough games when they are home alone with Eddie and concentrate on brain games and quiet time.
Hi, thanks so much, I have read through your thread - you've put such a lot of work into solving this problem, so glad you've had success!
Hi and welcome to the forum. I agree with everyone above in terms of over excitement. When he was running back and forth I expect you were praising him (which is right), and this probably made him really excited. He will calm down in time but he is still a pup at the minute. Hope your son is ok.
thanks for the reassurance - my son is fine now and no damage done really, he was more upset that he thought Eddie had turned on him and was scared it would repeat
