I’m writing this almost in tears as I really have no idea what to do.
My daughter is 3.5 and we recently got a pet dog, who is now 6 months. She’s always been very keen and confident around dogs, never frightened and always keen to stroke them. We’ve never had a pet before. For the first month or so everything was fine. The pup was crate trained so while the kids were around she was in her crate to keep them and her safe. For the past couple of months, now that she is more reliable around the house and doesn’t pee everywhere, she spends most of her time in our kitchen/dining room. Since this time, every time my daughter is in the room she will try to pick her up, squeezes her (says she is hugging her) but it’s obvious the pup doesn’t like it and struggles to get away. Today I caught her pulling her back legs. She says cruel things about her too “I’m going to put puppy in the bin” and “I’m going to poke puppy’s eyes” “puppy is stupid” every time she says something like this I remind her that it’s nasty and no to behave like this. Today I lost it and put her in her bedroom and lost my temper at her shouting at her to leave the dog alone. She had her favourite toy removes too. 5 minutes later she came downstairs and atempts to pick the pup up again. I’m at a loss of what to do. I feel so terrible for the dog, but also feel my daughter is acting this way as a way of attention seeking but I’ve no idea how to solve this. I don’t want to have to rehome the pup (rest of family inc myself adore her. Not to mention she cost a lot of money) please no judgement I already feel awful.