My adopted puppy bit my child. Is it safe to keep an aggressive dog?

I do not blame you for being very concerned, and I'm sorry for your daughter's injury. Because you cannot teach an eighteen-month-old how to respond to the puppy in such a way as to minimize the possibility of another incident, there is a reason to believe it could happen again. I would return the puppy to the breeder if you can, explaining the reason why. Perhaps Buzz is just not suitable for a home with small children. There is such a thing as temperament testing, which can be done through your local kennel club. Though not foolproof, this can give you some idea how a puppy will react in a variety of circumstances. This may not be the breed mix for you, or it may be that you simply need to go to another source for your puppy. There are many factors involved here, and I would be happy to discuss the situation at length with you. If you are interested, just click on the prompt to initiate a consult.

What you are describing may be normal puppy behavior for Bear because some puppies respond very poorly to dominance type of behavioral training. However, I would be concerned with the behaviors that you are describing. I would recommend contacting your veterinarian or the foster organization for a recommendation on a trainer to work with to have someone else observe Bear's behavior to help you decide where to go from here. The longer this behavior continues, the more serious it will be become, so this needs to be dealt with immediately. In the meantime, I would not reprimand or challenge Bear since that seems to escalate the situation. Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

I'm sorry to hear that this happened! How upsetting for you and your cousin. The situation you describe - a child coming up behind a dog and startling it, particularly when food is involved - is an extremely common trigger for bites. Any dog will bite if it feels scared or threatened. Our responsibility as adults is to make sure that these situations don't happen. For safety reasons, I would recommend keeping Max separated from any visiting children from now on to prevent this from happening again. Also, in the future, please don't hit him or scold him for reacting this way - the aggressive behavior was prompted by fear, so punishment will only make him more tense and defensive around kids in the future. This is likely why he growled at your friend once he was back in the house - he was stressed and upset, and already "on-edge" from everything that had happened before. If you want to try and work on this issue through training, I would strongly recommend getting help from a veterinary behaviorist who can evaluate Max in person and help you put together a detailed plan for him. Training for aggression issues is generally focused on teaching the dog to associate good things with whatever he is currently afraid of (such as children, visitors, etc.), and should not involve punishment of any kind. Management is also extremely important to ensure that everyone stays safe, for dogs with any history of biting. You can search for a board-certified veterinary behaviorist in your area here: www.dacvb.org

That is a tough situation! It is concerning that Harley bit your granddaughter, and for her safety, yes it may be best to find him another home where children do not live or visit. If you want to try to keep him, get him into a professional behavioral expert right away. I never recommend owners work with aggressive dogs on their own due to the safety risks. You can work with the expert to see if he is a dog that can be kept or if finding him another home is best. Until you make the decision, keep him completely locked up and away from your granddaughter whenever she visits. Best of luck.

The first thing you need to ask yourself here is whether or not you believe the bite to you occurred intentionally, or accidentally while you were trying to separate the two dogs. If it is the former, keeping a dog within your home that you only just adopted that is already ready inflict harm to you is going to be difficult if you don't have a ton of experience with dog behavior and training. While I love pit bulls (I have three), I readily understand that they are large, powerful dogs that can do some serious damage. If you live alone, or if you have children, my recommendation would be to relinquish the dog unfortunately, If the latter is what happened, there may be opportunities for addressing the issue. I would keep the dogs separated for at least the next 24 hours and let things cool off. I would reexamine the entire situation and try to identify what could have happened that brought about the fight the first time. Examine it from every single angle possible, in terms of people in the room, dogs in the room, items in the room, what the dogs were doing, anything at all that could be a variable. This is going to be the most important thing to figure out. You will ultimately need to keep Jazzy on a leash until you are completely confident that she isn't going to hurt your little one. The process may not be short and will definitely not be easy. Either way, I am going to suggest you hire a dog trainer and / or speak with a veterinary behaviorist. If this sounds like all too much, I don't blame you. I think that you have not had her long enough where you should feel terribly about having to relinquish her. I understand it is difficult, but this is not a great situation for you or your dogs. I do quite a bit of behavior consultation and I would be happy to talk some more if you'd like. Either way, I hope you are able to come to a decision. Stay safe.

Thank you for submitting your question regarding Teddy. I agree that his behavior is very worrisome. I would recommend seeing if his breeder will take him back or exchange him for another pup. A responsible breeder should want to ensure each pup is in the best home to meet their needs. If this is not an option, then I would start puppy training and maybe individual classes immediately to help socialize him. Finally, he needs to see a veterinarian to ensure there is not a health problem causing his behavior. I hope this information helps!

Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. I am sorry to hear that this has happened. This behavior is certainly concerning as you don't want Boston to cause serious harm to your wife or anyone else for that matter. I would recommend taking Boston to a behaviorist for training and other recommendations. There are trainers that will take Boston for several weeks for the training or trainers that will come to your house for in home training. At 4 months of age, this is easier to correct than when he is 4 years old. Now is the time to take action as it is much easier to train a puppy. I hope this helps and for now, please take the necessary precautions and keep Boston away from anyone until he is appropriately trained.