My Mastiff has become aggressive with child visitors..

[Stellapatella]

I was hoping for some good feedback about an issue I'm having with my 16 month Mastiff. He has been raised with 2 children (6 and 8 years old), and 1 other dog. I have socialized my guy since the start- when we got him at 8 weeks. He has been through 3 training classes and been out and about in lots of new situations and has met many new people. In the past 3 months he has become aggressive with new children entering the house. At first he was just reaching his head up to grab a sleeve, and then he started barking and lunging. He was just rushing up to them but recently grabbed the shirt of a little girl and got her back at the same time. He did not break the skin but left a small bruise. The little girl had walked in with my daughter and she was just standing in the hallway. They weren't running and yelling or even playing.. they had just entered the house. She hadn't come through the front door. She did turn around at the last second when my male was running toward her- and then she stood still and that's when he got her. Lately, when I know we have a playdate scheduled I will just crate him in our bedroom with a stuffed kong. Its nice and quiet in there. We do live in a neighborhood though and during nice days and summer kids will just come and go with my kids (on our culdesac..).
My male has never, ever been mistreated by children and has been socialized, socialized, socialized. He is still intact- I've been trying to wait until 18 months to neuter. I am considering rehoming him because my kids will be kids for quite some time and I don't want to take the chance this will happen again. Has anyone had any experiences like this? My male is also a little leery outside with new people but once he warms up he's great. He is more cautious with children outside of the home too. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[broccolini]

That's a tough situation. Did his attitude toward kids change suddenly? Or has he always been leery of children but has become more reactive? Have you had him vet checked to make sure it's not something physical?
What kind of mastiff is he?

It's hard to change his attitude toward kids without using actual kids, and that's hard to do with a dog that is willing to bite them. Is there a park or elementary school where you can go and watch kids at a safe distance?

 

[Bh-k9]

What kind of mastiff? What you might consider aggresive he might consider protecting your daughter and his home ?

There could be a million and one different things going on here, more information would help to help assist you.

Like everything from what he does in the morning till night, other dogs he is around, how he treats his family, what he does when he meets strangers on his property and off. Etc

 

[Bean]

What kind of mastiff? What you might consider aggresive he might consider protecting your daughter and his home ?

There could be a million and one different things going on here, more information would help to help assist you.

Like everything from what he does in the morning till night, other dogs he is around, how he treats his family, what he does when he meets strangers on his property and off. Etc

Although you are right in saying guardian breeds were bred to guard, lunging at an innocent child is not an acceptable nor stable form of guarding. Mastiffs should be able to discern friend from fo with the guidance or their owner. The OP is doing the right thing asking for advice, this is by no means acceptable behaviour and will require some more information, and some consistent work.

Any medical/behaviour issues? What type of mastiff? Was there ever any negative experience with kids? Taunting etc...

Wish you the best of luck, hopefully you can solve your dilemma with some hard work and diligent training/socialization and controlled exposure.

 

[musicdeb]

What kind of mastiff?

First of all, leash the dog when people are coming into the household, meaning a controlled introduction. Watch the dog's body language. If you see the dog is going to lunge, take him away from the situation.

Are you positive he meant business or did he want to play with the little girl? Does anyone in the household play rough with him?

Have the people entering the house to ignore him and let him sniff them in a calm environment. Do not make a person's entrance into the house as a big party. Keep it calm.

To make you feel more at ease, muzzle him. He will feel your anxiety and that can cause him to react.

Maybe a vet check is in order to make sure there is no health issue. A couple of people have posted that their dogs had ear infections which was unknown to them until a vet check and their dogs were lunging and snapping at people.

Return to OB training with him. It is correct, no dog should be allowed to lunge at a child but the dog has be to taught that that is not allowed.

Keep us posted on his progress.

If you will feel more comfortable rehoming him, then make sure the new home has no children and the new family can train him to be more tolerant of children.

 

[CeeCee]

I don't have children, but I do have a mastiff that is very unsure/overwhelmed when people come into the house. We had an incident over the holidays where he panicked at people being in the house. I leash and muzzle him. Going forward I will be keeping his introductions VERY short. A brief moment calmly experiencing their presence in our house (with no one talking to him, touching him, looking at him or making any movements over or around his head) and then back to my bedroom.

I think you said it best yourself, "he is very unsure when people first come over." He may need you to create a more controlled introduce where he can get his bearings and read on the visitors before being allowed to have free run or being able to interact with the people. Your boy is young and still learning. I'm assuming that all the formal obedience training as taken place outside of his home. You may want to bring a Trainer into your house to assess his state of mind and create a plan specific for him.

 

[Bh-k9]

An intruder is an intruder no matter child, friend, are foe. Part of the responsibility of owning a guardian breed is knowing there is no innocent anything in the dogs mind. It's family are not and no in between no matter what he are she has shown you in the past.

Every single mastiff i own was from someone who wasn't willing to put in the time to learn and work there dog, and decided after bringing the dog home and raising the dog it was easier to just get rid of it.

The problem is everyone thinks these "animals" are humans. Sure I want my dog to be able to determine a threat level of a three year old as opposed to a 22 year old thug. But at the end of the day a dog is going to be a dog.. My wife says that to me all the time lol... He's obviously got some insecurity nerve issues going on, doesnt respect your role as leader from what iread,depending on what type of mastiff we can narrow the problem down.


Don't give up on him.. pm me ill give you my number and let's get this fixed.

 

[Rugers-Kris]

I do agree that he seems to lack confidence in himself and because of that he becomes nervous and unsure when his surroundings change and you have visitors. I would work on his confidence by having him on a leash (a short one) and teaching what is and is not acceptable behavior with new people.

It appears you are recieving two totally different opinions of the matter and I am some where in the middle. First, a guardian breed is a guardian breed BUT each dog is an individual and must be treated as such for training to be successful. Which Mastiff do you own?

My EM, Ruger is a perfect example of how each dog is different. He is 23 months right now. I hear endless stories about super friendly gentle giant EM's all of the time and then there are those that are friendly for the most part but get guardy on occasion for real clear threats and then there is Ruger.

Ruger does not care for anyone outside of "his people" for any reason and in the event that I need to introduce a new person into his life it is a process that is definitely not happening over night. He is very controlled and super confident and I can take him anywhere but he does NOT like strangers and I do not allow people to pet him. He isn't some lunging maniac or out of control lunatic and I couldn't be happier but he is not the norm, by any means. He goes to work with me everyday, he is a giant marshmallow with his people, gentle with his children (my granchildren) and was socialized like crazy when he was younger and still is.

First you will have to decide what your dog is telling you. To me it sounds (As I said initially) that he lacks self confidence and is nervous and jumpy and that is what is causing your problem. There is no over night fix for this but it definitely can be fixed with dedication and a lot of hard work.

You will need to build his confidence by getting him "out and about" to many different places and people and as he handles these situations appropriately, reward him tremendously. Also, do not allow people to reach out to him or crowd him...Always control your situation and he will learn that you are confident and in control and he will relax a bit and trust you to handle things for the most part.

Also, when people come over, DON'T shut him away (Unless you do not believe that you can control the situation) In my opinion, this makes things worse. If he is nervous, you can ask people to keep thier distance, not make eye contact but a dog cannot learn how to handle a situation that he is always kept away from. I am not saying to over stimulate him but it can be done without over stressing him and that is the way that he will learn to become confident and trust you. Once he does that he wil be a much better judge of people and what a "threat" is.

Having said that, not all dogs see children as children. Ruger, for example, sees "babies" as children but anyone over the age of about 5 is a person...a person that is a stranger and he will watch them and treat them accordingly.

Once you work with your boy and learns to be self confident, he may be much friendler and he may not but what it boils down to is to learn who he is and what he is telling you and teach him to be confident and trust you, the rest will work itself out.

Good luck to you.