We had to put down my husband's black lab/border collie of almost 15 years recently and we came home with a full blooded black lab soon after that. I've never dealt with a puppy before (hubby's dog was 7 when we got married), so this has been a huge learning experience for me. Sable is now about 4 months old and she's getting to be heavier than my 3 1/2-year-old and in her bouncy, puppy excitement, she tends to plow my daughter over and lay on top of her to 'wrestle.' We've never encouraged this with the two of them, but I'm obviously not having any luck getting it to stop. We're trying to work on both ends, teaching my daughter the right way to treat the puppy and teach Sable the right way to treat the people. Any tips on how to accomplish this?
Re: Puppy and 3-year-old Hello there,I'm sorry you recently lost your much loved pet, I'm sure you new addition is creating a lot of fun and chaos for you I've got Dexter who is nearly 15 months,he came to us at 5 months as we live in Dubai and he couldn't be imported before that.I don't have my own children but my 4 year old nephew and 3 year old niece are at my house nearly every day.you are doing the right things approaching this from both angles.... Both George and Sophie got a fair few knocks off him at that age....our management of the situation was to tell the children not to run and to teach Dexter to sit....we also constantly reminded them not to lift anything,a toy,a drink,their shoes above their head as that would make him leap up to try and get it....and they'd get knocked over. Dexter is really easy going but they were never allowed to go into his crate and we taught them that if Dexter went into his 'room' (the utility room off our kitchen that has a child gate on it ) they weren't to follow him,they were to let him have his space.this might help,you if you have a designated area you can keep separate for your pup?Ive always intermittently put Dexter in there too so he got used to being separated for us all without it being an issue or him think he was being punished. Wrestling was not allowed with us,they'd have got hurt and I was following the 5 minute walk rule so he wasn't wearing his claws down enough for them not to get a nasty scratch...wrestling with us ,the grownups still prompted a bit of mouthing too which I didn't want near the children. Before you know it this time passes and you start seeing this http://www.flickr.com/photos/97066992@N03/sets/72157638884748123/ Good luck and best wishes x
