My dog has bitten my toddler - new home needed urgently or PTS within 2 weeks

[lil88]

P is a former rescue lurcher dog is 7 years old and has been with us for over 3 years and been in and out of foster homes before we had her. It was not until we had her for a few months that we found out one of the reasons she was given up for fostering was because she has bitten a toddler climbing into her bed. She also has nervous aggression with other dogs which was only apparent after a few months with us and still suffers from separation anxiety. To cut a long story short, My husband and I were fortunate to have a baby nearly 18 months after we had homed P. With a young baby to cope with we knew it would be difficult to give P the attention she needed and also we had some concerns about the risk of P biting the baby at some stage and therefore had her up for rehoming at EXXX where she came from. However we have not had any one interested and despite our attempts to enquire with other rehoming centres, we have drawn a blank as they have either told us, to return her to EXXX, she was a difficult dog to rehome, or they had a long waiting list. Further EXXX has not come up with an appropriate foster home for her nor will take P back. Our baby is now a 23 months old strong minded child and she and P always compete for our attention. Indeed our LO can be rough with P who has generally responded with baring her teeth at our LO or run away from her. We have tried to tell our LO to be gentle with P otherwise she would be bitten but she does not listen. Things came to a head on Sunday, when my LO was bitten on the wrist by P after when our LO had patted her quite strongly and lost her balance and fell on P. This took place at the doorway of my kitchen. This incident has not fazed our LO and I only fear that matters will escalate. I am afraid that our LO's safety is our priorty and although P is not to blame for the incident due to the nature of our LO, we can not risk any future incidents which could end up with a worse result for my LO. We have decided that if P can not be taken in by one of the dog charities, we will arrange for her to be put to sleep in 2 weeks time. So can anyone provide a kennel or foster home or home P. We are based in Worcestershire.
This has also been posted in Lurcherlink appeals for help

what sort of dog do you have sovery? There is obviously a world of difference between a 1yo sitting on a leonberger for a minute and a 3 or 4yo spending hours on a Labrador or something even smaller

Just want to say thanks for the very few who seemed to have understood my position clearly and not slated me. For those who have jumped on the bandwagon of making claims of being an unfit parent, you obviously have not read my original post. I can not believe the venom of some of the comments that are not helpful - why comment if you can not help. For those who say that I have not put in any effort, we found out after we had her for a few months that she had been with 2 families before being put up for adoption/ fostering. We have worked hard with our dog, training classes, behavioural report and thought she could be trained by the time the baby arrived. The dog is highly strung with other dogs and walking her is not pleasant or relaxing. An aggressive lunger at other dogs and a puller - I walked her twice a day even whilst suffering from Braxton Hicks during my pregnancy and after suffering from low blood pressure half way through my pregnancy, taken her regularly on walks with other dogs to try and re-socialise her with dogs but with no sign of improvement. As I said it's not the dog's fault - just in the wrong household. I now have an offer from a rescue centre via Lurcher Link and I note that although there have been many viewings (700 plus) of my post on Lurcher Link only 8 replied - and generally sympathetic. I am very shocked as to the vociferousness of the unhelpful replies on Mumsnet and I will in future not bother asking for help on Mumsnet. And for the comment made about why have I not responded earlier - I have been busy trying to find a home for the dog instead of avidly reading your unhelpful comments and oh yes looking after my LO who I had been potty training since Saturday but I had decided to put her back in nappies this morning so I can concentrate on the rehoming side of things and because of the additional stress.

Ok I am going to try and be nice here, as you clearly believe you are in the right.

You need to exert some control over your child for her own sake. This situation was entirely avoidable. The dog gave you warning after warning after warning. The only way it could have made it's feelings more clear would have been to learn the power of speech.

You did not do enough to prevent your child from behaving violently towards this animal and so the situation escalated. The dog had no other option but to up her ante. You failed to protect her from your own child.

What is going to happen in the future if your child chooses not to listen? What will happen at nursery if she is not taught that violent behaviour is in no way acceptable?

You are putting your child in a potentially dangerous situation by allowing her to think that this behaviour will be tolerated. I will reiterate again that if she copies this in a park with a strange dog, she may well end up with more than a nasty nip.

I am so very happy that your dog now has a chance and pray it works out for but for love all things good and holy do not, ever, take on another animal.

Oh god I'm not talking hours a day - a minute or two every now and then!

The dog fucking bit small child... And 2 different children. It's not just a case of not fitting in. Ffs... Sorry for OP.

And dig has tried to assert position over child by biting it. That's not ok. Dog is bottom of pack. Yes your child needs to behave around animal but dog should never bite. Cannot believe some of the comments. Fucking madness

Dog not dig

Having read the threads on Lurcher link it looks like you are going ahead and having her putdown or has something else happened since the last post.

I have contacts with 100's of rescues and a team of fosterers please pm if you have not get a home for Pippa yet

Actually this was a neat if vipers and some of you ought to be ashamed.

Nest

maia - defending itself from what it perceives as attack is not asserting itself. It's self-defence. Finding it a new suitable home is the sensible thing to do if at all possible. PTS is just punishment unless the VERY last resort.

I think a lot of people were because what did you expect would happen when unsupervised toddler and a dog were put together?

I think most dogs would react in a similar fashion, I know the ones I've had would. This is very different from when a dog bites for no reason.

My mother has a hovovart, so a fairly large dog, lovely, with a calm disposition. Last summer we went to visit her for a few weeks. DD was 2.5 and although very well behaved with out cats, at my mum's turned into a monster and wouldn't listen to us when we told her to leave the dog alone. So once she started hopping like a bunny around the dog who was lying down-the dog, unnerved, snapped at her. Few days later, she kicked him for no reason. Dog snapped and growled again. Didn't hurt her and would not growl when she was not bothering him, but obviously gave a warning that he would not put up with such mistreatment. After that I kept DD with me or DH every moment.

But now that DD is 3.5 and much more mature, I know she will not behave that way again and I have no worries about visiting my mum this summer.

Your DS will change as well and will understand that he can't bother/hurt the dog in few months time. Maybe it's worth waiting a bit?

I hardly think the dig thought its life was in peril and it does sound like it was asserting itself. It should be happy to share its bed/toys/food with any human. The toddler wasn't whacking it with a stick fgs, yes maybe over enthused petting but hardly fight or flight scenario

I am sorry if this has upset you, and you were of course not to know how this would turn out. Starting a thread like this and then not returning to it was bound to end like this.

Of course you, as a new user of MN, could not know this.

You also included no information about what you have done with the dog to help her get used to having a child in the house. There was no mention of training classes or a behavioural report, which is why we have gone on the info in your opening post.

I stand by my earlier statement, however, that you had a responsibility to both your child and your dog, to ensure that neither had the opportunity to (even inadvertently) hurt each other.

You also have the responsibility towards your child to teach her that some dogs don't like to be patted heavily and that she needs to take care around dogs. She was lucky that your dog just gave her a warning nip and did not cause a more serious injury.

She has bitten two children - the first climbed into her bed and the second mishandled her. She has no way of saying, "here, I am not very happy with the way you are treating me", so this is the result.

Having a dog PTS based on the info that you have given would be really wrong. She is not a savage, uncontrollable beast, but a highly strung and nervous dog who would likely be a great pet for a person or couple without young children.

Fecking iPhone dog not dig

A child should be ale to climb into dogs bed.

Able

Mama
Do you have a dog? You do know that the whole bottom of the pack thing has been pretty much overtaken by other dog rearing theories.

The dog wasn't asserting itself as boss, it was defending itself from a noisy and irritating child who would not leave it alone.

Maybe not fight or flight, but if the dog could not get away from the child, what was it supposed to do?

Mama
Yes, it should be able to climb into the dog's bed, without the dog biting it, and this is something that the owners should have trained the dog to accept. Or keep the toddler away from the dog.

Some dogs don't like kids. Doesn't mean they should be PTS. They should be homed with people who don't have kids.

The rescue was perhaps slightly negligent in rehoming the dog with a young couple, who were likely to have children.

Op I have contacts of rescue centres too, do not pts. pm me for details.

Has anyone got a link for lurcher net?

I grew up with dogs and spent some of adult life with dogs.working gun dogs in the main. G.s.p. also labs, g.s.d, goldies and a jack Russell. As children we would take the dogs toy/bone etc we would give it back too, used p climb in kennel and dog bed. My pointer used to climb I my bed too (without my mum knowing ), I was very bonded to all my dogs (except the jrt as much). The only issues ever were when one of our pointers was losing her sight and hearing and she would get scared on walks so would growl and snapped once. The other was gas who'd been mistreated and we rescues her. Se had real issues with other dogs and needed lots of help, she was lovely. Our first dog was a lab, he was also a fraud ad had been mistreated. He was gentlest soul ever but didn't like men much.

I don't know Toughasoldboots but the last link on lurcher link implied "that it would be the kindest thing to do."

There have now been two offers of rescue