# Reactive w/kids? Help please.



## kai_15 (Feb 20, 2015)

Hello, hoping to get a bit of advice here. Sorry in advance that this is so long, I am just in a bit of a pickle! 

I have a 2 year old female GSD (Kai) and she is a wonderful dog, a lot of fun, trainable, playful, and super sweet.

Kai is not a big people-person dog. She is wonderful with me and my husband and she loves my parents and does very well with them. Strangers though, she isn't thrilled. She isn't aggressive (she will bark if someone approaches direct on in a deserted area) but has never growled/snapped/bitten. In general, when someone new approaches (e.g. at our farm when she's outside the house and someone drives up) she will bark and approach a little bit, in general people ignore her and she will relax and go up for a sniff and then come back to the house. If the person backs up or becomes tense/nervous, Kai will stay there barking and barking until I quiet her and put her on the lead. 

The big problem we are having is to do with kids. When Kai was little we did all the standard socialisation, she attended puppy classes, she went to specialised GSD training, we went to public places, and all was going along well. There were children with their puppies at many of the classes and she was never phased.

Then she met my sisters children. My sister, and her eldest child are both very afraid of dogs. They both said they were ready to meet her (she was about 6/7 months old) and we went over basic things like if you get scared to stand still, and it was all a controlled area. However the eldest ran of screaming, Kai naturally chased after him, there was yelling from the parents and lots of barking. I called her back, she came, she seemed anxious like she had no idea what just happened. We were never able to recorrect the experience because my nephew refuses to see her again. However, they still come to the house and so I put her in her outside run. But Kai loses it when the kids come over. Loses it. She always barks when people knock/come in, but she will stop when you tell her quiet and just kinda skulk about making sure nothing dramatic happens. When the kids come over, she is throwing herself against the window, barking, howling. She never behaves like this any other time.

Then a few weeks later we were out for a walk and she saw some other kids and she started barking and lunging. To be fair, we had some problems when she was younger with barking at people when on lead, never children though. I corrected her, it went on for almost two weeks, now she doesn't bark or lunge but I can see her tense and focus so intently on children in public.

I called our trainer and we went through it. The trainer was worried (as am I!) and ended up bringing her son over. Her son is older 12ish and very comfortable with dogs. Kai was initially way too intense, but with some correction she settled and we did some training together. Overall, I would say she wasn't aggressive or reactive with the boy but she was definitely over-excited (didn't respect his space so well, mouthy when he moved his arms erratically). Then again, this is the first child she has been able to play with since being a pupperpuppy. Unfortunately we can't keep working with this trainer as they are going through some personal issues and not consulting for the foreseeable future.

So now I am super confused. I am too worried to let her off lead now in public just incase children appear suddenly and she takes a turn towards aggression. So we are spending time in parks on lead around playgrounds and areas with children doing sensitivity training. However it seems like we have reached a stalemate. She seems to tolerate children in the vicinity, the can be 10m away and playing and she will do all her obedience work and focus on me, she can even sit and chill and watch them and not being hyperfocused/tense. But as soon as they start towards her, she is up and barking.

I don't know how to resolve this. I don't have other children I can introduce her to so she can have the resolution of a meeting (ie. children approaching linked to reward and calm.)

I guess where I am stuck is that if she has to spend her life being quarantined from kids I could manage that, we have good exercise options on lead and I could always consider a muzzle for when we go hiking so she can go off-lead (very low chance of children out there). However, in the back of my mind, I am worried about what happens when we have children of our own. If I continue to train her to be separate from kids I worry that I am reinforcing whatever anxiety/fear/mistrust of kids is and the damage will be too much for her to change down the line? But how do I train her with children.. short of advertising for volunteers haha.

Has anyone else had this problem? Anything work or didn't work? I'm sorry I wrote so much, I am just so not sure how to proceed from here.


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## cloudpump (Oct 20, 2015)

kai_15 said:


> Hello, hoping to get a bit of advice here. Sorry in advance that this is so long, I am just in a bit of a pickle!
> 
> I have a 2 year old female GSD (Kai) and she is a wonderful dog, a lot of fun, trainable, playful, and super sweet.
> 
> ...


You could always train her to ignore kids, or other people in public . 
Get her attention. Any time she stops paying attention to you, correction. Praise for attention, correct for focusing on children.

At home, you could tether the dog to you when kids are over. A place command is great, until a child acts like a child and gets too close, or the dog breaks the command.


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## kai_15 (Feb 20, 2015)

cloudpump said:


> You could always train her to ignore kids, or other people in public .
> Get her attention. Any time she stops paying attention to you, correction. Praise for attention, correct for focusing on children.
> 
> At home, you could tether the dog to you when kids are over. A place command is great, until a child acts like a child and gets too close, or the dog breaks the command.


Thanks cloudpump.

So keep working on dropping focus on kids/attention on me, and don't focus so much right now on trying to get meetings? 

I've crate trained her now and she is quite comfortable with it. The thing I was worried about is how stressed out she seems to get when the kids are in the house. I guess I haven't crated her with the kids yet because I feel like it is kinda awful to confine her crate with the kids around her knowing what her reaction is likely to be. Which is why I haven't done this yet. A friend said that's the point, she knows its a safe place and as long as I keep the kids away from the crate it is a place for her to come to terms with the kids noises/actions/etc without being threatened by them?


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## cloudpump (Oct 20, 2015)

kai_15 said:


> Thanks cloudpump.
> 
> So keep working on dropping focus on kids/attention on me, and don't focus so much right now on trying to get meetings?
> 
> I've crate trained her now and she is quite comfortable with it. The thing I was worried about is how stressed out she seems to get when the kids are in the house. I guess I haven't crated her with the kids yet because I feel like it is kinda awful to confine her crate with the kids around her knowing what her reaction is likely to be. Which is why I haven't done this yet. A friend said that's the point, she knows its a safe place and as long as I keep the kids away from the crate it is a place for her to come to terms with the kids noises/actions/etc without being threatened by them?


Yes. Exposure to things is a lot better than socializing with things.


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## dogma13 (Mar 8, 2014)

Kids make my boy really anxious also.He will try to herd them into a group and wants to keep them sitting or standing quietly together.When they're behaving like 'good lambs' he wants to lay beside them and ask for belly rubs.And no we don't go around rounding up children,lol!At a family event he tried this a couple of times very gently,keeping a careful distance.Now when there are kids visiting he is either kenneled or laying next to me so he can relax.If we are out in public somewhere and he spots kids I just give him something else to do so he can focus on that task instead instead of worrying about getting those kids organized.
So what cloud said is spot on IMO.Try to interrupt his intention to bark and lunge before it starts and insist he do something else.


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## kai_15 (Feb 20, 2015)

Thanks dogma13. It's nice to read about your experience with kids and your boy. I will stick to the exposure and desensitisation training then and redirect her to some training until she is also able to relax.

Any thoughts on crating her around the nephews when they are over? Is this an appropriate use of the crate? I'm very new to the concept. Never needed it with my previous GSD.


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## konathegsd (Dec 3, 2016)

My dog used to be very scared/reactive of kids. Teach your dog to focus on you. She now gets very excited around kids instead of scared and fearful.


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## konathegsd (Dec 3, 2016)

kai_15 said:


> Thanks dogma13. It's nice to read about your experience with kids and your boy. I will stick to the exposure and desensitisation training then and redirect her to some training until she is also able to relax.
> 
> Any thoughts on crating her around the nephews when they are over? Is this an appropriate use of the crate? I'm very new to the concept. Never needed it with my previous GSD.


Just make sure they know NOT to go up to the crate or stick their hands in.


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## Muskeg (Jun 15, 2012)

My female dogs are all good with the kids- my nieces and nephews, or kids we meet at demos or in public. But, that said, I don't let them hang out loose in the house. I put the dogs in the yard, or in a room away from the chaos. These aren't my children, and I don't want to be supervising constantly. A young kid can do things you wouldn't expect, and dogs are dogs. I'd recommend crating Kai in a closed room away from the kids, so you don't build up barrier frustration.

For out in public, it's a more complex process and involves more than just focusing on you, although that can help in the short-term. I'd find another trainer, a good trainer, and work with him or her.

I wouldn't worry about the dog and your own kids or baby. At least for my shepherds, family is very different from strangers, and they would never go after family. That said, I'd closely supervise- very closely- a baby/toddler and a dog. Some I'd simply separate, some I'd be less worried about, but dogs and young kids do often need to be monitored and possibly separated, at least in close situation like the house. Just not something I'd even risk, for any reason. My kids and dogs mean far too much to me.


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