# Why is my German Shepherd nipping at kids he knows?



## PinkUnicorn1 (Jul 27, 2012)

My 1 year old German Shepherd grew up playing with my 4 year old niece and my 6 year old nephew. They've always been able to get in his face, lay on him, or do whatever, and he's been totally fine with it. 

Tonight, I had my friend's Pomeranian in the house, and my dog was meeting him for the first time. There was a lot of activity, and people around, but after sniffing the other dog and meeting him, my dog was laying down and being very good. I don't know if it was all the commotion or what, but my niece walked by my dog and he snapped at her. I didn't see it happen, my mom pointed it out, but my sister was watching (my niece's mom) and said that he didn't try to snap at her, just looked at her. So I didn't do anything.

A few minutes later, my nephew was hopping around on all fours and jumped at my dog's face, and my dog snapped at him and hurt his lip.

Obviously, my nephew shouldn't be jumping around at the dog's face, and clearly there was too much going on for my dog, so he isn't entirely to blame. The problem is, he was laying there and I didn't see any indication that he was stressed out (other than my mom's claim that he snapped at my niece, at which point I probably should have removed him from the situation).

So I guess my question is: how can I know when my dog is stressed out, so I can remove him from the situation, and how can I prevent this from happening again?


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## doggiedad (Dec 2, 2007)

don't put him in a situation that may stress him. keep the children
away from him. he snapped/nipped/bit. a one time warning is enough.
when you have adults visiting you're going to have to feel it out, maybe.
you could put him somewhere so he doesn't come in contact with your guests
but that may not be necessary. you have to watch him carefully
and be the judge.


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## Twyla (Sep 18, 2011)

PinkUnicorn1 said:


> My 1 year old German Shepherd grew up playing with my 4 year old niece and my 6 year old nephew. They've always been able to get in his face, lay on him, or do whatever, and he's been totally fine with it.
> 
> Tonight, I had my friend's Pomeranian in the house, and my dog was meeting him for the first time. There was a lot of activity, and people around, but after sniffing the other dog and meeting him, my dog was laying down and being very good. I don't know if it was all the commotion or what, but my niece walked by my dog and he snapped at her. I didn't see it happen, my mom pointed it out, but my sister was watching (my niece's mom) and said that he didn't try to snap at her, just looked at her. So I didn't do anything.
> 
> ...


It was a high stress situation all the way around.

1. New dog in your dog's territory.
2. Lot of people
3. Kids jumping around

First the kids should be taught not to get in his face. You wouldn't want someone jumping in your face would you? He may have seemed fine with it, or maybe he was just tolerating it. Add on the new dog, a small dog that moves fast and maybe barks a lot. 

You may have not seen indications of stress but it was there, sometimes it can be missed. Panting, tightening of mouth and around eyes, stiff posture, focused stare, could be something as small as dilation of pupils.


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## MaggieRoseLee (Aug 17, 2001)

With kids and dogs it's NOT just about teaching the dog, it's also about having the kids learn what is proper and not. May save them from REAL severe injury from someone else's dog!

That said, if you aren't 100% about your dog in a situation (and most of us aren't in a new situation) we need to either be able to pay attention and watch what's going on. And if that's not possible we need to manage the situation by removing our dog from the situation until it's quieter and less busy. Not fair to anyone otherwise, need to set everyone up to succeed.

Meanwhile, this is one of the 5 trillion reasons  we need to continuously socialize our dogs in any and all situations for their lives (and really first few years). So we know how they will react, or if not we know we need to realize it's new and to pay more attention. But the more we take them out and about and expose them, the more the dog is comfortable and so are we. 

OR we know a sure trigger and know to prevent it. Just crating the dog or letting it rest in a back bedroom while it's chaos may be enough.

aw:


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