Panicking - pregnancy and dog

[Devastatedaboutourdog]

I am 4 months pregnant and have a 1 year old Jack Russell. He's lovely 70% of the time but has always been prone to nipping and snarling. Initially we put it down to being a puppy but now I'm not so sure. He has been treated like a king. We did everything right - puppy classes, training at home. His needs have always been put first and quite right too.

I am 4 months pregnant with our first baby and I always suspected that he 'knew' almost Immediately. He has become increasingly aggressive towards me. He always preferred me - I put this down to how much time I spent with him (I work from home for example). He can be quite vile towards me know.

Obviously with our impending arrival, I'm extremely worried. Is this common? I am worried he'll hate the baby and be aggressive towards him. Does anyone have experience of advice?

Did none of your puppy classes or training warn against allowing dogs to occupy spatially high positions, particularly if they are showing aggression?
Seek professional input, but go back to basics: he eats after you; has to sit on command before his bowls are put down; goes through doors after you; and is relegated to the floor. You can initiate affection, but don’t always reciprocate when he initiates. Make sure you aren’t unconsciously rewarding bad behaviour, for example by soothing if he growls.
I agree with others that he needs more exercise, a minimum of 2 x 1 hour proper walks a day. I’m sure walking my Dalmatian until the day I went into labour with my second helped me recover after the birth and helped keep me healthy! If however you are unwell with your pregnancy, get a dog walker, he really needs the outlet.
Please come back and tell us how you get on.

I had the softest Yorkshire Terriers growing up but when my eldest DD came along, the dog I’d loved and trusted for years could not be trusted in the house with her & my parents took him until he passed away.

He never did anything, I could just tell from his body language, it wasn’t safe. Hackles up, growling, despite following all the advice. Whenever we visited we never left the baby/toddler alone with the dog and wouldn’t have him in the same room.

We then got a Golden Retriever who is a babe and has been good as gold when the other DC came along. I really wouldn’t trust a dog that was good 70% of the time, sorry. And while I’ve known some lovely JRTs, I’ve also known some very aggressive ones. My big soppy retriever got attacked by one before Christmas for no reason other than the JRT didn’t like him in ‘his’ field according to the owners who didn’t bother to put him back on his lead and had no recall.

RLOU88
Your dog never bit anybody though or even came close so it’s a very different situation. And I would be interested [ genuinely, not being sarky] how you suggest that the OP can get him turned around [simply!)in six months. This dog hasn’t just bitten once or pinched another dogs toy. He bites constantly. She has had him castrated which usually takes away a lot of aggression. But this dog is still highly aggressive.
I think it’s quite mean of you to say it’s “hopefully simple enough to turn him round in six months”. The OP loves her dog very much and may take your word as gospel. I may be very wrong and I hope I am but it’s not fair to give her hope when her dog is so aggressive. Is it not wiser to err on the side of caution? This dog has zero respect for her. He bites her until her hands are shredded. Would you risk one of your children with this dog?

Sorry devastated, was watching Wolf Hall again. To answer your questions:

• was your dog boisterous as a pup? Mine never was extremely so, just normal

Pup behaviour

Our dog is still young at 10 mths, but no, he was never crazy boisterous, more placid.

• when did your dog stop the ‘bitey/chewy’ stage

He never really had a bitey/chewy stage. He has never damaged any furniture or children's toys. If he ever picked up a toy or odd sock left around, we were straight on to him to tell him 'no'. He has his own chewy things, but he takes or leaves them as the mood takes him really.

He loves play fighting though with my 8 year old boy. He knows that particular DS is the go to one for wrestling on the floor and play-biting. He makes contented noises during play and is very careful not to hurt DS. He knows the limits. In fact, we are constantly say to our children 'for god's sake! Put him down, he is not a toy or a baby!'. They just love him to bits. The GPs remark on how tolerant the poor dog is.

I am slow now I am heavily pregnant, but when on walks, he will charge around off lead with the children, and then come back or look back to me to check I am still with the pack.

• does she get offended when you go out and return??

To be honest, we don't leave him on his own that often. We left him 3 hrs once and he was fine (in a covered crate). If we are going out for the day, we leave him with my parents. When we see him on return, he is just very happy to see us and we make a fuss of him.

I don't really know what to suggest other than trying to get him retrained or walk him lots, keep monitoring his behaviour and reprimanding the biting, but if it's something in him from birth, then maybe not much can be done. If there is a shadow of doubt, go with your instinct.

In your OP you say you did everything in terms of training. Well I don't know what on earth standard of training you have in your mind that a dog should reach, because biting or nipping of any kind does not feature in the behaviour of a fully trained and well behaved dog. Neither does possessiveness over objects or furniture.

I'm a dog owner BTW.

I don't know of a single JR who would be properly exercised on just one hour per day. They are one of the highest energy breeds. A younger dog will always need more exercise than an elderly one - are your memories of family dogs of elderly ones?

I'm appalled you are tolerating any amount of biting or nipping.

You should know that no dog is 100 percent safe. No dog should be left unsupervised with a child of any age. When you read about the cases where a dog has seriously or fatally wounded a child, do you honestly think the owner of the dog thought the dog was a risk before the incident? Of course not, they always say what a lovely family dog it was.

OP as devastated as you are now to think about dealing with this issue, I promise it will be even more devastating to do nothing and hope it resolves when the baby arrives.

Your dog should not be nipping and snarling, you should be able to sit on the sofa in your living room and trust that your dog won’t bite or snarl at you.

Your dog is your baby at the moment, after you’ve given birth and all the maternal hormones kick in it’ll become very clear to you where your dog fits in to the hierarchy of your family. I can’t explain, it’s something you have to experience, but you’ll basically be mama wolf to your baby, and unless your dog has changed its behaviour considerably the situation will be untenable.

You have a adolescent and active dog that is being under exercised.
Brain games and training and more exercise. You say he won't do the things he did before? That's because you've stopped all training. My dog is always learning something new and practising what she's learnt already. She is over a year and we are still going to formal training sessions.
Get your dog off the sofa and stop tolerating bad behaviour.

You have a adolescent and active dog that is being under exercised.
Brain games and training and more exercise. You say he won't do the things he did before? That's because you've stopped all training. My dog is always learning something new and practising what she's learnt already. She is over a year and we are still going to formal training sessions.
Get your dog off the sofa and stop tolerating bad behaviour.

I can’t believe that you put up with a dog that ‘shreds’ your hands.

He shreds my hands by a mixture of mainly scratching and a bit of biting.

I haven’t stopped training him and I don’t tolerate it!!! We tell him off every time and give him a time out but it makes no difference.

The JRs I had in the past we’re mainly raised from puppies but some older. NONE of them behaved like this and none of them needed 3 hours exercise a day!!!!!

You can defend what you’ve been doing all you like but the fact is - you have a violent and unpredicatable dog. I wouldn’t let my small children anywhere near a dog like that.

Haven't rtft yet sorry.
If he's only a year he could be going through doggy teenage years?

We had a jrt when I was little, when my db was born she was very protective of him and would sit next to his seat thing. She had been raised around children though.

We also had a rescue that would snap (when we were older), my parents saw a behaviourist. So this could be something worth looking into.

I had a jrt.

Got him from a rescue centre so I'm not sure of his past background.

He was always hard work. Impossible to toilet train, lazy and very wilful.

He did what he wanted when he wanted and not a minute too soon.

He was my baby though. He used to sleep in bed with me and came everywhere possible with me.

He used to nip and growl at other people but not me. Unless I tried taking something off him he shouldn't have had.

When I fell pregnant, we immediately put some things in place.

He wasn't allowed to sleep on the bed anymore.

Took some time but he got there in the end.

He also wasn't allowed to be in the same place as the baby unsupervised, even if the baby was in a Moses basket. So baby gates were put up everywhere.

He wasn't really bothered by my Dd at all. By then he was a bit of an oldie anyway so pretty much ignored her. He was pts 8 months after my Dd was born as he had dementia. I miss him loads but it was the right thing to do.

I don’t mean to be harsh but how are you going to find the time to meet the needs of an adolescent dog and a baby OP?

How is he going to cope when you are glued to the sofa cluster feeding or trying to cuddle your baby to sleep?

We had two dogs when our DD was born. A JR x and an ABD x

The JR x was jealous as anything, the ABD x wouldn’t let him near the baby and actively positioned herself in a protective position. Once DD was sitting up independently the JR x behaviour changed again. He was then glued to her side getting strokes and cuddles.

So it is possible the first few months will be a bit rubbish, saying that though we never had an issue with the JR x with friends babies, was just ours he was jealous of.

In my job I have seen what a JRT did to a child's face. I have worked with dogs my entire life and I would not consider having a dog as you describe in the same house as a baby OP.

Please ignore all advice given here, except for the only advice that will work:

Vet and behaviourist. Now. Evaluation and decision making.

Your dog is currently a dangerous dog. Rule out medical issues first, then speak to a certified dog behaviourist (not one that adheres to the long debunked pack theory please).

Don't delay this. You will have decisions to make.

OP, you need a vet check and a behaviourist...

Leaping about is no indication at all of whether a dog is in pain or has a health issue that would cause behavioural issues, my dog has 3 different medical issues that cause pain, there's no way on earth you'd know he had any of them by watching him run about. You need to rule out a health problem so that then you can move straight on to training... also you want the vet to refer you to a qualified accredited behaviourist.

Dogs don't get offended and a 1 year old dog will not just grow out of biting, reprimanding and giving time outs will not work, it's a dog, he doesn't speak English or understand time outs... in fact you're very probably making his behaviour worse.

Just back from the vet. Nothing physically wrong with him. I pushed to get further tests but vet doesn’t believe it to be necessary. She recommended a behaviourist but said this is to be expected with JRT’s. I don’t know what kind of miracle JRTs we used to have but this is bollocks.

@Devastatedaboutourdog
I think before you do anything you should double his exercise. Do the hour walk you already do and then either you or a paid walker need to take him out for a very active session of fetch etc for at least another hour.

Pair that with more firmness to put him back in his place a little and see what happens.

In your situation I would have him rehomed or put down. I would also keep him muzzled and leashed in public, in case he bites somebody.

There was a case in the news a couple of years ago in which a Jack Russel attacked and killed a newborn, crushing the baby's skull. The dog was in another room with a stairgate, but somehow got over the gate and got into the room where the baby was sleeping. Horrific.

Jack Russell's were bred to hunt and kill rats, I don't think they're a suitable breed to have around babies.

"She recommended a behaviourist but said this is to be expected with JRT’s."

Sadly, some vets really don't know much about dog behaviour, it's not a huge part of their training (for obvious reasons they concentrate on medical stuff, lol) so if they don't do extra they can have some odd ideas.

But a behaviourist will be able to help you.

I have a 4yo JRT and, quite frankly, he's an arsehole. I love him to bits but he's such hard work and I wouldn't have taken him on in the first place had I known how he would turn out. Like you, we trained and socialised and did classes but he's jealous, snarly and has nipped more than once. He HATES other dogs and is really unpredictable around them.

DH and I have decided not to have kids anyway so it doesn't matter but we both agreed that if we did want them, there's no way we could have a baby with the dog around.

As I said before I don’t subscribe to pack theory and would avoid any trainer who did.
However, when we got our pup he had some resource guarding issues and bit me quite badly once ( would have been worse but he still had baby teeth). We worked with a lovely lady who also worked with Dogs Trust and was recommended by our vet. She said he shouldn’t go on the show as some dogs could with no issues and some couldn’t- she actually mentioned JR’s as a breed that could get snappy if given too much leeway and said she would always advise JR owners NOT to allow them on the furniture ( ours is not a JR by the way).
We noticed a definite improvement once certain boundaries were in place and when he went to home boarding for a weekend age 8 months he WAS allowed on the sofa and beds despite us asking that he not be and when he came home he was very stroppy again and jumped on the sofa and growled when told to get off.
Like you I grew up with this breed and thought I knew them inside and out but our current dog didn’t arrive as the soppy teddy I remember so fondly from my childhood. He’s great now but the training is ongoing and he does occasionally guard some things - he will happily give them to me but growls if my son approaches
I would normally slate anyone who rehomed a dog because a baby was due but in your case I think it’s the right thing to do. You will be on edge the whole time and the dog won’t be happy either. If you really love him you will do it for him

All the JRTs I've known have been very unpredictable and a few were PTS for dangerous behaviour. I know of two that killed all their own puppies. I'm sure there's some 'reason' for all their behaviour but it was the 80's and farming families and people weren't so precious about dogs as they are on mumsnet. I knew when visiting as a child to give the JRTs a wide berth, and my friends (whose families owned the dogs) had all been bitten or attacked at some point as children.

To be honest I'd be looking to rehome from what you've said.