# Puppy thinks daughter is her litter mate



## alexdo (Oct 26, 2013)

I can handle the accidents, the early mornings and the general mayhem this puppy is causing in the house but recently we are having problems with her being aggressive towards my daughter.

My daughter is 4 and it is a constant battle telling her not to pick the puppy up, not to disturb her when she is in her sleeping place etc.

My daughter has led the puppy to believe that they are litter mates or something and now every now and then the puppy goes bonkers, has a massive rush of energy - generally in the park - and she chases my daughter growling barking and hanging off her coat and ripping it while my daughter runs away laughing.

I am not laughing however as she tried that on a little boy we did not know the other day. 
I have booked a trainer to come in for a one on one at the end of the month, she can't come any sooner so any advice appreciated!

This morning my daughter was in the bath as the puppy had chased her up the stairs!
Puppy is about 14 weeks old...


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## RuthMill (Jun 30, 2012)

I don't have much advice here but I work on allowing your daughter to feed the puppy and get her involved in training ie giving commands and treating. That will put your daughter above the puppy in the hierarchy and might go someway to helping the puppy realise that your daughter is not at the same level. 

That said 14 weeks is very young.. As is 4 years old. Good luck with the trainer.


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## fairlie (Sep 7, 2013)

Marzi did babies and puppies at the same time, she will have suggestions for how to survive it!  My guess is it involves multiple gates and leads. 

Four is way to young to put any responsibility on your daughter. Children need to run and squeal, puppies need to chase and catch. Not a match made in heaven, especially given the razor teeth and the tender skin at such a tempting height!


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## alexdo (Oct 26, 2013)

Hopefully the trainer will be able to help. She is coming for 90 minutes to the house to see exactly what is going on!


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## fairlie (Sep 7, 2013)

Very smart to consult a trainer. Good luck with it and let us know what they said. It will help others who combine puppies and small children.


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## Tinman (Apr 23, 2013)

alexdo said:


> Hopefully the trainer will be able to help. She is coming for 90 minutes to the house to see exactly what is going on!


It sounds like super nanny! 
Ralph recently had a tendency to bite Billy's feet (billy is my 4 year old son) - but billy did keep kind of putting his feet there when Ralph was sleeping  despite been told not to on many occasions. 
When this happened Ralph was told no and put straight in the crate for 10 minutes (billy was also told no!! By this time he was crying cause Ralph had bit him - sounds worse than it was, Ralph just made more of a warning growl and air snap) 
This has now stopped, thankfully on both sides.
But ruby who is still only a puppy & Ralph see billy as a play thing, and will completely knock him over when he comes in from school and jump all over him, he thinks it's funny sometimes - but if he's not in the mood it's not much fun for him.
Please share some of superpuppynannys tips x


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## DB1 (Jan 20, 2012)

I think 4 is a good age for her to start helping (not fully responsible) with training, feeding etc, I look after a little girl who is 3, she is great with Dudley (she was the only one that wasn't bothered about his nippy stage either and she was under 2 then!), she will ask him to sit for treats and put him in his crate before we go out, in fact he shows her more respect than he does my 13 year old son as he spends loads of his time laying on the floor letting Dudley lick him all over, whereas she will tell him off for licking her, she ignores him a lot of the time then gives him huge cuddles when she wants to, I think she would be a perfect dog trainer when she grows up!! I do think it maybe more of a case of trying to train your daughter! however during the nippy stage I did separate Dudley a lot of the time leaving him in the hall behind a babygate. Good luck.


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## Marzi (Sep 17, 2012)

Gates and leads!
Ha! I'm such a control freak 
Your daughter sounds pretty happy with the pup, which is good.
Have to as I am not a fan of walking dogs in parks where there are children's play areas. Sadly too many dog owners do not pick up poop and out of control dogs and children are not a good combination. Also tricky to concentrate on pup and child/children.
If I took the dogs to the park I would keep them on the lead, I would tell the kids that we had to take the dogs for their walk first, so by the time we got to the park they were exercised and empty.
If I see people walking with children, I put my dogs on lead. Sometimes I then let the children hold my dogs leads - they love it, well the kids do


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## KGr (Mar 11, 2013)

Hopefully you'll get some good advice from the trainer. 

Pip (now nearly 10months old) used to do this with my eldest (6) but not my youngest (4). I think she used to pick on my eldest more because she got a reaction-tears, squeals, screams etc. It was such a shame cos my eldest had so longed for a puppy & was desperate to play with her without her nipping. The vets nurse advised time out in her crate everytime the play got too giddy/nippy and also getting my daughter more involved in training/feeding etc. This worked really well but even now we sometimes have to put pip in time out when she's having a crazy 5 minutes. 

She always jumps up when the kids come in the room but now they're a bit older they can handle this. Would be good to now how to get her to stop jumping up at strangers though?! 

Good luck


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## Kipling krazy (Apr 23, 2013)

Not much to add but Dog Trust talks with children tell them to stand still and do the 'x' factor, i.e arms across the chest so as not to wave,flap and excite the dog more.


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