Help/Advice with lab puppy and small children (terrified)

My children (ages 3 and 6) have been asking for a dog since we moved into our new house over a year ago. They've only been around a few dogs in their life - 1 was their grandparents older small house dog which they played with sometimes, and the others are 2 very large dogs at a friends in which both were pretty scared but captivated at the same time. We live in a neighborhood outside of town, and have a 2 acre lot. My wife and I decided we wanted a larger dog vs a small yorkie-size, so she could stay outside a good bit as she grew and would enjoy the pool and the land. So last Friday I went to the shelter and adopted a soon to be 3 month old black lab (name is Adeline, Addie for short). Problem is that my children are terrified of the dog. They love to watch her play, watch my wife and I interact with her, and even love to toss her toys for Addie to fetch. But they're confined to the couches when Addie isn't locked up out back on the screened in porch. We've been trying to teach them to calmly walk as needed, no excitement or running around the dog as it just excites her as well. They both will tell her "NO" and "DOWN" as she tries to jump up on the couch or on them, but Addie doesn't listen and keeps jumping and staying excited. My wife and I have decided to give it until this weekend to get a little better before we take her back to the shelter

Is there anything I can do help this situation? Addie has been doing great with her crate at night, she's taken to potty training outside really really well already, and has done almost everything we've wanted her to do except for the interaction with the kids. I understand that it involves training not only Addie, but the children as well, but my wife feels that the children can no longer enjoy their home due to their fear of Addie. They literally will not move from the couches when Addie is inside. This entire week has been a balance between either holding both the kids so Addie can be inside, or holding Addie so the kids can be inside. The only thing I can think of to help in the meantime is to purchase doggy gates and keep her restricted to the kitchen while the kids are in the house. Is that the right decision or should I start looking for her another home?

 

This sounds like compleatly normal puppy behavior. I am a full time nanny for a 1.5 year old and when I got my puppy I was able to bring her to work with me. She LOVED the little guy and he loved her too, but she was very overly excited, nipping, jumping up, ect. It took quite a while for it to get better, and lots of positive reinforcement for calm behavior but it is worlds better now at 5 months. I did use baby gates to separate and lots of crate "time outs" for the puppy when she was just too excited. If you are willing to work at it and your children are as well you will do just fine and I'm sure she will be a wonderful dog.

 

I would also add, saying "no" or "down" to her right now won't do much, if anything because she has no idea what that is supposed to mean. I trained "off" when I didn't want the puppy on the couch. Puppy jumps up, I saw "off" with my hand signal and when she gets off she gets a tasty treat. The first few times I had to lure her off by holding the treat jus in front of her nose but she caught on quickly.

 

Hi @takirb welcome to the forum from me and my 23 month old chocolate girl.

Firstly your puppy is still so very young. Labrador's are incredibly boisterous and need a lot of consistent training. Addie will not understand "down" and "no" and will find it incredibly exciting. She will think that your young children are very exciting puppies that she wants to play with.

You say you collected Addie last Friday and are going to give it to the weekend. That really is no time at all. Only you can make the decision about your puppy, and rehoming her though. It is tough I can remember crying with tiredness the first week I collected my puppy and I don't have small children so I do sympathise.

I would confine her to one room at the moment to help with toilet training although she shouldn't be left on her own for long periods of time. I have found some useful articles to take a look at which will help.

http://thehappypuppysite.com/introducing-your-puppy-to-your-children/

http://www.thelabradorsite.com/bringing-home-a-rescue-dog/

Also take a look at the link below, it's a very comprehensive guide and you can pick out the bits that are most relevant to you.

http://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-puppies/

Good luck, it won't be easy but you have the forum which is a wonderful source of information. A few puppy photos would be nice

 

Thank you for the reply. I started training with "down" this morning to keep her off the couch. When all 4 feet hit the floor again, I praised her and gave her a treat. I guess I need to work on keeping her, as well as the children calm. Sounds alot easier than it is

 

Hello and welcome to the forum. I agree with Claire; that really is no time at all. However, if you're struggling now (which is completely understandable), then you need to be prepared for it to get a lot worse, too. Soon, she's going to start nipping, which is perfectly normal, but it hurts. I would advise you read through this thread to get a flavour of what is to come: http://thelabradorforum.com/threads/puppy-problems-will-things-ever-improve.1680/

You really need to separate your puppy and children; a play pen would be useful for this to start, and may make the children feel a bit braver, too.

Have a read through the link above and see if you think what you read is something you can cope with. If not, then you may be best considering an older dog instead.

 

My children were 3 and 6 when we got Jessie our puppy. Part of the reason we got her was because they were already quite scared of dogs after some bad experiences.mThere have been a good few tears along the way. They were very frightened by her jumping and nipping. But things have got much better.

I think expect to keep them largely separate from each other. We used a crate and a stairgate on the kitchen so the kids could be away from the puppy. And the puppy could have time out when she got too mad.

Teach the kids to be like trees, stand still, turn away and fold arms the minute she stars any jumping. Adults need to do this too to stamp it out altogether.

We used the command 'floor' to reward all 4 feet being in the floor.

To build the relationship between the kids and dog I used to have them sit and stroke her whilst she chewed in a rawhide chew I was holding.

As said above, a week is no time at all. We are 10 months in and the children will now happily roll around with her on the floor. All nipping and jumping has stopped at home. They all adore each other. It has taken time, patience and training, but we got there in the end. I hope you can too. Good luck xx

 

You need baby gates and a way to separate puppy and children. When you are able supervise VERY closely, hold the pup yourself and have a toy or chew in your hand to redirect the pup's teeth.

Read the links above - they are excellent.

 

WOW, thanks for all the replies! That makes me feel much better, that everyone advises using the gates. I'm torn up about possibly taking her back, but we can't continue going the way things are. I'll be headed to pickup some gates today. I feared I was making a mistake by having to keep them separate, but it appears to be the norm.

The kids have petted her plenty of times, usually when she's sleeping on me or if I'm holding her and keeping her occupied with a toy. They even say the blessing for her before she eats in the evenings, it's the cutest thing. I'm hoping that using a gate to keep them separated will allow for them to interact safely for a few months so Addie won't see them as new toys in the future.

 

I promise you it will get better. The baby gates are an excellent idea. My 2 year old granddaughter was very scared at the beginning when Libby was jumping and nipping and stayed up on the sofa like you describe but now just a couple of months on she will kiss her and can dance about without fear. You will regret giving up so soon but never regret getting through this stage with the use of careful strategies.

 

My daughter was 8 when we got Xena and that was hard enough. It's a lot harder with younger children It's going to be a hard until Addie is around 5 months, maybe longer. Xena made my girl cry almost every day. We have an open plan living/kitchen/dining, and from 3-5 months my daughter watched tv/ate snacks/chilled out by sitting ON the dining room table. It was the only place she was safe from puppy teeth. Once Xena was settled she'd move back to the sofa. Then at 5 months the croc faded and we got to safely reclaim the sofa.

So like the others have said, you'll need to carefully manage their interactions for at least another couple of months. If you're not prepared for that level of work (the cute puppy videos on Facebook and Buzzfeed don't prepare you for this, do they?) then it'd be best to rehome Addie asap.

 

I have a 4 year old who is also a bit scared of our puppy. He's 13 weeks now, and it is starting to get better. We've had him since 8 weeks and in the very beginning they could not be together at all. He would get way to excited and would nip and bit and leave her in tears. Now when he gets over excited, she knows to stand like a tree and turn away from him. It seems to help quite a lot. Also a quick, "Don't bite, Tite!" from me or her dad usually works

Of course, he still forgets sometimes, so we still don't ever leave them together unsupervised but she can pet him now and not be worried that he's gonna take a bite of her hand.

 

No advice to you as I've never had the kids plus puppy combo - it's puppies only for me.

However, I used to foster a lot for various rescues and the number one reason dogs would get returned post-adoption was when a young or adolescent puppy was adopted out to families with children under ten years old. There is this pervasive myth that dogs and kids just magically will become best friends and combine that with the other common assumption from first-time-dog-adopters that puppies are cuddly balls of fluff who just naturally develop into man's best friend and you get very unhappy puppy-adopters. I personally simply stopped adopting my fosters to anyone with young children.

I'm not saying to return Addie or that you yourself had unrealistic expectations... just that you aren't alone in having quite a shock in the early stages. Heck, I'm quaking in my boots at the prospect of going through the puppy stage again and I've had lots of them! If you do think it's best to find a new home for her, though, I wholeheartedly agree with @Xena Dog Princess that you should do it as quickly as possible so that she has the best chance of finding a good home - the older they get in rescue, the harder they are to place.

Whatever you decide, I hope it works out well for you and your family!

 

Hi Takirb,
Glad you have found the Forum to help you work things through ....you sound much more positive about Addie's future with you further down your thread.Dexter was 5 months when he came to us and whilst we don't have our own children my niece and nephew visit most days...they were nearly 3 and 18 months at the time.Dexter was past the worst of teething but he was still mouthing ,especially when excited .We survived by everybody having their own space ..Dexter had gated areas where he could still see us but was contained and the children were taught not to invade Dexter's spaces ,so they didn't go on his bed,in his crate or lock themselves in with him behind the gate.We also had a rule about not walking round with food !that would have been a sure 'jump up opportunity ' !!!! it took a lot of policing and it can be quite tiring but it does make things easier. It does get better,George and Sophie didn't love Dexter for a long time and used to ask for him to be put in his room if they wanted to play.I didn't always give In because I wanted him to learn calmness around d them and he could only do that by being allowed to be with them .They adore him now and say hello to him now before they do to me. As they got older and Dexter grew calmer I could also include them in training and they really loved that x

 

It took months for Molly (now 9 months) and my 4 yr old daughter to get along without tears. When she wasn't biting she was jumping on her, eating her hair, running off with her toys (actually she still does that) When we met friends with little ones she wouldn't fail to make someone cry. Was very stressful but it gets better don't expect to much to soon.

 

Baby gates definitely saved my sanity.

 

Hi @takirb welcome to the forum from me and my boy Bailey. Although I don't have kids at home from 8 weeks old when we got Bailey he has been around children of all ages due to my job. When he was tiny the kids loved him and I often had to take him away for his sanity. Now at 9 months old he is a normal bouncy affectionate lab and this does scare some children unfortunately. Bailey loves children and just wants them to fuss him and so he can lick them, but we have to be very strict and vigilant with his interaction with the kids.

Separation and training the kids to be calm no matter what happens, learn to be trees and ignore him until he is calm is a lot of work but so worth it. Rewarding Bales for being calm with treats given by the braver calmer children works well too.

It is going to be hard work, and only you know if you can do this, but a week is really not long at all for any of you to get used to each other. Fingers crossed everything works out for you, but when in need come onto here for advice and support, whatever you come up against there will be others either going through it or been through it and can help.

 

Well, I wanted to give everyone an update on Addie. We purchased the dog gates and within minutes, she was over them. Though the kids did start doing a lil better around her, they still both got bit (nipped) a few times and there was still a lot of fear and crying. Ultimately it was just too much for my wife and I as we can't constantly be supervising 24/7. Luckily, my sister in law offered to take her this evening. She has a fenced in yard, and only works a few hours a week as a hairstylist so she and her husband will be able to give her the time and attention she needs. The hardest part for us was my 6yr old daughter bawling about giving her up. She even had me in tears I told her after she's interacted with Addie more over the next year, we'll look into getting another dog but now we know we should be looking for an already mature adult dog that the kids can have fun with and won't be as demanding on the wife and I. Thank you all for your advice and support!!

 

@takirb That's very sad for you all, but a brave decision to take. You do need to live in a relaxed environment with happy children. That's good she has gone to your sister in law so you can still see her. I hope she gets on ok. Thanks for updating.

 

Sorry to hear this, a brace and sensible decision, at least you will still get to see her