Stopping Puppy Jumping And Nipping Toddler

[Lollydog]

Our Lolly is a 16-week-old Jack Russell. While not aggressive, she still tends to mouth - sometimes painfully. She has met small children before and, while friendly towards them, she does tend to overwhelm and frighten them by jumping and mouthing.

For short visits, we can deal with this. However, my 20-month-old grandaughter will be visiting for 10 days next week. Although she is used to dogs and loves them to bits, I can't imagine she will be very impressed by being constantly jumped at! We don't want to be growling at Lolly, as this would probably be upsetting for my grandaughter who is too young to understand such discipline.

Does anyone have any ideas of a strategy we could try? I've already decided that, when first introduced to each other, we will have Lolly controlled on a lead. Isolating Lolly in the bathroom seems to have been effective in stopping her bounding all over the furniture - do you think it would work to stop her hassling the toddler?

[Sandra777]

Isolating Lolly in the bathroom seems to have been effective in stopping her bounding all over the furniture - do you think it would work to stop her hassling the toddler?

Not for 10 days it wouldn't, it would just make her more hyper and more keen to investigate this new thing in her house. On leash is an excellant idea - and keep her on leash until she's learnt how you want her to react. Could take two or three days but if you're consistent she'll get the idea. NEVER let puppy and toddler meet first thing in the morning, make sure puppy is tired first....

Are the child's parents dog-savvy? If they're prepared to help then it'll be a great learning experience, if they just want to freak out and demand you keep "that dog" away from baby then it's just going to be a nightmare. Crate/baby gate, supervision. Play time for puppy (tired puppies tend to be reasonably well behaved ) Use all puppy's food as training treats, teach sit, teach leave and did I mention supervision?

[beenie]

I'm not an expert, but we have found that yelping loudly like a puppy would when our pup mouths us works well. I have a 2yo and obviously she can't 'yelp on cue' so I watch her and pup closely and when the play gets too rough I yelp for her. Puppies in litters play bite, but if one bites too hard, the other will yelp - biter learns that was too hard and moderates their play, or so the theory goes. Initially we had to be really focussed on it for about half a day with constant supervision (still do that btw) and it really helped get the message across that we didn't want pups teeth on our skin AT ALL.

HTH!

[Lollydog]

Well, the 20-month-old dog-lover is here! Very little jumping and no nipping from Our Lolly the JRT! (Guess I ought to have had more confidence in Lolly's 'oh, it's a baby, better be nice instinct, huh?!

[luvsdogs]

Keep us posted as time goes by. Would love to know how it's going.

[LizT]

Well, the 20-month-old dog-lover is here! Very little jumping and no nipping from Our Lolly the JRT! (Guess I ought to have had more confidence in Lolly's 'oh, it's a baby, better be nice instinct, huh?!

Nice to hear they are getting on. I guess you don't need to be told not to leave them alone together (but JIC)...oh, and that they both will need "time out" from each other! Alot of dogs don't enjoy enthusiastic toddler hugs..too often.

[Lollydog]

Well, the 10-day visit went swimmingly! Our Lolly was, generally, very well-behaved with Our Lucy the 20-month-old dog-loving toddler! Of course, there was the occasional jumping-up-for-a-kiss behaviour from Our Lolly. By day 5 Our Lucy had learned to firmly tell Our Lolly 'off!' when this happened -to surprisingly good effect! Our other dog (an adult FNQ Lurcher) also did quite a lot of baby kissing - much to Our Lucy's delight.