Toddler pushes my dog

[Harrjenk]

Hi, I feel totally pathetic writing this post as I feel I should be able to sort it out myself but I’m totally stuck. My 2.5 yr old son, who is usually gentle and kind with people and animals, pushes and runs at my dog. He’s a rescue dog and he has learnt to hate this behavior from my toddler. He barks and shrinks away and runs away. My toddler loves this reaction and also any reaction from me and just keeps doing it. He often does it when we are out for a walk and I stop to talk to someone or take my eyes off the pair of them. The dog is on a lead and so can’t get away. I’m scared my toddler is going to get bitten as I really couldn’t blame the dog for that given what he has to put up with and I’m at my wits end of saying “No” and “stop” to my toddler. It’s not always possible to redirect his attention or remove him from the situation. I’m finding it unsustainable trying to separate them, I’m at home on my own with the two of them.

if I Google it, the answers are so generic like “just say No and remove your child” but I’ve been doing that for months now. Usually when I ignore the bad behavior it improves on its own with my son but it doesn’t seem safe to ignore this. Help!!!

No, but the thread is innparentint, not the doghouse. No one is suggesting training a dog by hitting it and IMO that applies to children too.

This is terribly sad for the poor dog
I've had dogs all my adult life
I've brought up numerous children ( mine plus many looked after)
I've never smacked a child in my life but My God had this happened in my house once it wouldn't have happened again
Your cute, 'looking for attention' little 2 year old will soon be that naughty 5 year old in reception, then that nasty, bullying 10 year old in Year 6.
Your child needs to be told in no uncertain terms that HE DOES NOT HURT THE DOG, if you have to shout it, shout it, move your child away from all that's nice and Yes he's a toddler so pick him up and physically move him. He doesn't get to go back to all that's nice until he's calm. If he does it again you do the same thing again. What you're currently doing isn't working and one day that poor dog will retaliate

When one of my children was a toddler he dropped our kitten in the tiny little pond, because "he thought it would be funny", kitten was fine just a bit wet it regularly out fell in that pond chasing butterflies. I asked him if he thought it would be funny if I dropped him in the pond and he said no and was really sad. He wasn't allowed contact with the kitten for a week and he was never like that with any animal again.

I would ban your son from contact, any contact with your dog or anyone else's dog for a week. If he repeats the behaviour he gets another ban. It is not acceptable to treat a living creature like this and he needs to learn that now before he gets hurt. He doesn't get to hold the lead one minute then attack the dog the next, no contact because he is being unkind and everytime he complains explain that if we are not nice to animals we are not allowed near them.

I am not even going to bother addressing most of the batshit post above but I will say to anyone reading this worrying that how their child is as a toddler is indicative of who they are as an older child not to.

Children do need discipline (which is about guidance and modelling, not punishment) and boundaries, much as I hate that word, but this ridiculous idea that because a toddler is being a pest to a family pet they ‘will grow up to be’ is nonsense, and that’s a polite way of putting it.

I cannot believe people are encouraging physical abuse on here and that’s what you’re doing, don’t come back with any justifications because there aren’t any.

@Eveningintheafternoon im trying not to listen to those comments. I was parented in a very shouty way and I’ve always promised myself that I don’t want to parent like that but the challenge is not going too far the other way and being too permissive. I want to parent with firm, clear boundaries but I’m having to learn how to do this in practice. Some of the tips on here have been really helpful and this morning went pretty smoothly. Mornings before nursery can be challenging for us, presumably as my son has a bit of separation anxiety, but my son explained back to me this morning that he is not to play with the dog inside, but he can play outside when he is off the lead. It was easier than I thought keeping them separate and my son ran at my dog once (who was behind the stair gate) and I removed him without any fuss and we carried on our morning. So I’ll keep trying this tactic to see how we get on. It’s definitely the fuss that my son enjoys, he gets a two fold reaction from my and the dog every time he does it and I can see that it is sometimes irresistible to him. I know it doesn’t mean he’s a psycho, he’s incredibly gentle in many other ways, including often to the dog but 2 yr olds thrive on pushing buttons especially if they are a little disregulated at the end of the day or hungry etc. Thank you for your support, I value you your advice and it’s resonates with the way I want to parent. The article @BertieBotts linked is also really good.

You need to come down like an absolute ton of bricks on your toddler. He'll be bitten soon, which could be very serious indeed - children have been hospitalised and even killed by dogs biting them.

That would also result in the dog being put to sleep, all because of wishy-washy parenting and an inability to set and enforce boundaries.

Grow a backbone, for the safety of both your child and your dog.

‘I would ban your son from contact, any contact with your dog or anyone else's dog for a week. If he repeats the behaviour he gets another ban. It is not acceptable to treat a living creature like this and he needs to learn that now before he gets hurt. He doesn't get to hold the lead one minute then attack the dog the next, no contact because he is being unkind and everytime he complains explain that if we are not nice to animals we are not allowed near them’.

I agree with this. Regardless of age, he needs to learn that you can’t treat animals like that. If the dog snaps/ bites him , it’ll be all the dogs fault of course. Responsible pet ownership is needed.

Obviously,the gentle parenting way of doing it isn't working though is it?
Time to get tough with your child.

I absolutely agree, there should never be a time to put your hands on a child, but the same applies to the dog, too.

You definitely need to be more strict and firm. If he ran across he road, would you tell him not to do that in a slight raised tone? My mum was unbelievably angry with me, I never did it again!

I've a two year old and a rescue dog. On the very rare occasion toddler has done something our dog doesn't like (like pulled his ears or been too rough) we've been extremely firm and loud in a no and telling him off on his level. We don't shout normally at all, but there are instances where we feel we need to, to protect our dog, when toddler was heavy handed with a baby, safety on the road etc. We then make a big fuss of our dog.

We've also tried different ways for toddler and dog to play together. Toddler loves the reaction he gets when we make a treat box up for dog and he gets to give it to him. It's just little cardboard boxes/cereal boxes filled with treats that the dog loves to tear open. He also loves to play 'go find' which is hiding treats in a room, then calling dog in to sniff them all out. Would that give him a positive reaction and training from your dog?

Ignore the comments about rehoming your dog. Just work on keeping on top of your child's behaviour, and seeing if there are ways to foster more positive interaction if you think that would work. Have you spoken to nursery about it also? I'm heavily pregnant with my second and they've been really helpful with advice

Also it won't last forever, it's a difficult age. In a few months he will be past this. In the meantime ensuring this stops happening and your dog feels safe is a priority, and he will grow out of this.

Agree 100%

The author of the dog article recommended an approach by Becky A Bailey which is called Conscious Discipline and outlined in the book "Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline". The title is a bit yuck IMO but I looked into the theory and it is really very good.

The idea behind the name conscious discipline is wrapped up in several concepts.

First of all we tend to automatically parent in sort of an unconscious way. We naturally react the way that our parents did to us, we generally don't know how to put conscious thought and proactive measures in place. So the idea of "conscious" discipline is both about changing that old learned automatic response to something that is more logical and thought out and effective.

Second, much parenting advice is very one-size-fits-all almost like it could be applied automatically by a robot. "Oh just tell him no" "Take away his TV time" "Make sure he knows who is boss" "Count to 3 and then give a consequence" etc. But for effective communication you need to be very present and cognizant of what is actually going on with your child. So, paying conscious attention. Being curious. Looking at what they are actually doing and why.

Third the idea of discipline - we often shy away from this thinking it means something harsh, punishment. But think about the discipline of martial arts or meditation. Think about the discipline of a swimmer or a gymnast committing to practice every day. In this way it's about repeated practice and consistency and building good strong habits and norms. So you have the discipline of yourself as a parent committing to being conscious and proactive, and that leads to the discipline of the child who is learning self restraint and learning what is acceptable behaviour.

In this situation particularly it would probably be counterproductive to be very harsh and intense and loud with your son because this is just going to upset the dog as well. You don't want to create a situation where the dog comes to see any interaction with your son as even more stressful because he is expecting it to result in shouty scary mummy. Your aim is to reduce stress for the dog!

MN has a lot of parents with differing parenting approaches and the idea that children are little hellions and you have to stamp out perfectly ordinary toddler behaviour lest it grows like an angry monster is popular, but it's not something that I would subscribe to. Which does not mean that you have no boundaries at all, it just looks a bit different how you would want to approach things. Setting up for success is hugely effective IME and if the dog issue is the number one issue of the moment, then it makes sense to really focus on this one issue by doing all of the things that help set that up for success.

Are you joking, we have 3 toddlers who learnt very quickly to leave the dog alone unless it's cuddles and pats. Your allowing this abuse of the dog so take responsibility.

I'm worried about this scenario happening with my dog and toddler, but my dog hates being separated by a gate, so what I'm trying to teach is space - toddler needs to go around the dog, he needs to give her space, and she also needs to give him space (like yours, mine often seeks the toddler out of her own accord too).

In reality, this means most of the time I'm out here marking my toddler like an NBA player, physically blocking him from reaching the dog or making sure he goes around her if he's en route somewhere. If she approaches us and toddler is calm, we practise 'gentle hands' and scratches in dog-appropriate places like neck and head. Otherwise, we move elsewhere or I block with my body. Somedays we leave the house after only being up and awake what fees like minutes because I'm so sick of policing the interactions and dog is safe at home.

The only thing I'd suggest which I haven't seen said yet is a very clear 'here is what you can do when you feel like this'. So e.g. your toddler gets the impulse to run at the dog and get the reaction from both you and her, it's fun and exciting. When you see this happen and you distract the toddler, try saying something like 'when you feel like you want to run at the dog, let's do XXX instead!' and make it really fun - in my house it's doing the cancan. We put the song on alexa and all dance around kicking our legs like showgirls and shouting CANCAN for 3 minutes. By the end, everyone is laughing and out of breath. High energy, high volume, high reward. You can prime your toddler to kick this off himself and eventually maybe instead of charging at the dog he'll just stand up and yell CANCAN and you know you are all going to do something stupid for 3 minutes.

Sometimes distracting with books or toys in the moment isn't high reward enough. You need to do something really loud and stupid to bring them back on side and beat the impulse in their head.

@reabies really appreciate your comment. I always liked the analogy of treating the dog like it’s in a bubble- the dog can burst out of its own bubble and the child cannot burst it. I have tried this approach, and also the approach of just gently patting the dog on the head from the front (dog is completely fine with this). All goes well until my son steps into this disregulated universe that generally happens when he’s anxious, tired, hungry or just plain bored and then all of this is forgotten. Or perhaps it’s not forgotten, perhaps he’s still very aware of all this teaching but he can’t help himself as he knows he’ll get a reaction out of everyone.

so I really like the idea of redirecting the behavior into something fun- does your toddler recognize when he’s about to feel like this? I may be underestimating my son but I suspect he’s not cognisant enough yet to be able to step back and redirect his behavior in the moment.

@BertieBotts thanks, you’re being really helpful. I don’t really subscribe to “punishment”, as I genuinely don’t find it to be particularly effective as I’m not sure my 2 yr old can connect the two events- do something bad to the dog and get something taken away from him in return. I will take a look at that book- as conscious discipline in general sounds like how I would like to approach any learning situation with him, but I need to learn how to do it. My go to tactics in general are a) shout- which I’ve resolved not to do anymore as it’s doesn’t work and makes us both miserable b) say No until I’m blue in the face c) use a positive alternative to redirect what he’s doing- ie when he used to pour water on the floor “the water stays IN the cup”.

There must be a more effective communication/discipline tool!

@A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 thanks, lots of useful stuff there!

@Harrjenk Ahh no, definitely not, mine is only 19m so got even less of a clue what he's doing hahaha. But in general as a parent I really try to focus on what he 'can' do rather than what he 'can't'. Eg, he's not allowed to stand up on the sofa, but instead of saying 'don't stand on the sofa' I say 'you can sit down or get down. Ok, you're not sitting down, so I'm going to get you down'.

So basically no I have no idea when he's about to do something insane. But I'm hoping that by constantly reinforcing what he is allowed to do, and making loud fun silly things part of our normal life, then when he starts to get these crazy impulses maybe he'll think ok I know what's fun, shouting CANCAN with mummy, let's go.

And yeah I agree with you, when they get disregulated all learning goes out the window. Your toddler may know that hitting the dog/punching the tv/ throwing food on the floor are all things he's not supposed to do, but when his little brain is saying 'im bored and the dog is always fun' he cannot apply that reason and logic that actually it's not a good thing to do.

There has been some great advice on this thread (and some absolute rubbish) but toddlers and dogs aren't easy. Managing my two is the bane of my life and I have huge sympathy for you!

So we had a safety gate on our kitchen and we also had a cage for a safe space for our dog to retreat to which he did (I always hated the thought if a cage for dogs but our dog ended up loving it like his little house). Also I wouldn't allow my son to go in the cage or to it when the dog was their because that's time for the dog. My son would try and grab his tail or be too hands on sometimes not all the time but when he was being manic! We use a naughty step on the bottom of the stairs and it works for our son. Your sons testing boundaries and because he gets a reaction out of the dog and you he will keep doing it. I would invest in either a gate on the kitchen or a cage so that you can give the dog some space away from your son. And then when your son if being a menice to the dog I wouldn't cause a fuss remove the dog to his safe space and sit your son on the step explaining why he's there and walk away for a couple of minutes. He will eventually learn that being a nuisance to the dog means he has to sit on a step on his own and mummy or the dog won't play with him. I also wouldn't let him on the dog walk either for a while until he gets the fact he crnt behave like that maybe walk the dog on your own. I wouldn't just rehome your dog like some people suggest at least try to work it out because I'm quite sure with the right measures in place and discipline it will work out fine. Our dog and son became best of friends xx

@Jadeypie so nice to hear they have become friends! My husband is very dismissive of the problem and just says “one day they’ll be friends so don’t worry” but of course it’s not him managing the day to day at home and trying to keep them both safe. I’m hoping for this in the future. There’s no way we’ll rehome the dog, there’s just stuff to work through instead. We were told by the rescue centre not to crate train him so we never did- but we do have a safe space for him the sofa in the back bedroom behind the stair gate so rather than just letting him go up there, I need to send him up there to keep them separate. My dog gravitates towards my son which has always made me hold back from putting him upstairs but I need to be the one separating them at all times until my son grows out of it.

How does your toddler respond to non-dog related situations when you say no?

I think you need to have the toddler in a buggy when you take the dog out for a walk. This will prevent misbehaviour on the part of the toddler and it will be much safer (you don't want to have to chase down a toddler who has broken free and run into the road while also managing the dog).

At home, you need to buy a set of barriers and keep toddler and dog separate at all times.

You also need to be very firm with him. Your NO needs to be non-negotiable at all times, not just with the dog. Yes, there will be tantrums and unpleasantness - noise, essentially, and you need to develop a tolerance for that. Your LO will still love you with all his heart regardless of butting heads. He will be a happier child when he knows you're in charge, not him.

@mathanxiety thank you, that’s nice to hear. Honestly he’s got pretty good recently at listening to me- I find myself praising his “listening ears” much more frequently, so the dog thing is a big one off problem for us. He’s started to joke around a bit with me on other stuff- for example he’s very good at stopping when a car comes along but he will sometimes pretend to move and then laugh at my reaction and standstill, so he seems to be getting a good grip of safety stuff.

it’s all gone really well so far today now I’ve implemented some stuff so fingers crossed it continues. I was a bit slow on the uptake with it all as prior to now both my son and dog totally ignored each other so I got a bit complacent that things were good and it’s taken me a bit by surprise.

This frequency sounds normal and, while not ideal, certainly tolerable to me. My toddler pulls my dog's tail or swats her from time to time. I'm assuming he'll grow out of it. Of course we say "no" and separate them (dog goes into an older child's bedroom for some peace) but it's no bigger a drama than a toddler throwing food on the floor or water out of the bath. If the dog doesn't have a history of biting and you step in when the toddler is rough and give the dog space so it doesn't feel cornered, this situation will surely fade in a few months (and the toddler will have a new annoying habit!). Sounds like you're making perfectly reasonable efforts to keep everyone calm and safe. Good luck getting through the next few months,