Please help, struggling with difficult dog and dd can't have her friends round

[FoxesAreFabulous]

I have posted before about our training struggles with our mini poodle boy and although he has improved in some ways, I feel that I am reaching the end of my tether - I feel so upset that we are making so much effort and working so hard with him and yet, love him as we do, we are finding life really difficult. I'd love to hear some possible solutions or even that this is just a phase, as I am starting to think that we can't go on like this - then I feel so guilty for even thinking that, as I can't bear the thought of rehoming him.

I'll try to be brief but the issues are:

1. Dd (13), whose dog he really is, is too embarrassed and scared to invite friends round to the house now, in case the dog snaps at them or bites them, and I can't have any friends with young children round. He was friendly with everyone when a puppy but as he has grown up (now 14 months), it has become very clear that he is very nervous around any children smaller than dd. He can walk past children in the park or on the street with no problem and show no interest, but if any child approaches him, either making noises or with a hand out to stroke him, he barks at them and snaps at the air. Obviously, we keep a very close eye on him and have been able to manage this by telling children/parents that he is nervous and doesn't like being stroked. However, at home he is very barky with visitors anyway and it takes a while for him to calm down - we tell people to ignore him but he can snap and growl from a distance. Once he decides to approach someone to say hello, he is then fine with being stroked but even then we have to ask visitors not to overfuss him, as can be unpredictable and snap. I have been on the receiving end of this several times but I read him pretty well now so can mostly avoid it, strangers just see a cute fluffy dog!

Because of this behaviour and his real dislike of anyone smaller than dd, who is tall for her age, dd now refuses to have any of her friends round as she is scared he will bite them, apart from one friend who he has known since he was a puppy and really loves. Dog has already snapped at one of her friends when we met them outside somewhere and this boy brings this up in conversation whenever the subject gets round to pets at school. I feel so sorry for her as all her friends with dogs have really friendly dogs who are good with everyone, despite the fact that we have spent far more time training ours, who is way more obedient but far less friendly. I have suggested having the dog on a lead with me the whole time a friend is here but we live in a flat so nowhere really to have the dog away from visitors - plus, as dd says, her friends will want to see her dog and we won't feel safe letting them stroke him.

1. The barking - he's not a barky dog in the day but every evening, stations himself at the sitting room window and barks every time he sees another dog, a cat or a fox. Trying to move him when he's doing this results in him snapping and although we've moved the sofa away from the window, he now gets onto the window sill. We've tried keeping him settled on a blanket with treats for staying there but this only works for so long, and we don't really want to shut him out all evening in the hallway (which would probably make him complain after an hour or so)

1. When we got him, as a puppy, I was off work over the summer holidays to settle him in and then my mother has been dog-sitting for us during the week during term time. The reason we took on a puppy (after a year of looking for a suitable rescue) was only because my mother was quite insistent that she wanted to dog-sit and that looking after our dog would be lovely for her as she now doesn't have a dog of her own.

Fast forward some months and my mother is now not finding it lovely and complains all the time about not having any free time (she comes at 1pm and stays until dd gets home at 5pm). She has asked me to arrange daycare for at least 2 days a week, knowing that I can't afford this (I could do it for 1 day a week but no more). Dd is furious with her and stressed about the dog, I am just feeling really stressed about it all.

Thanks to anyone who has got through this and has any useful advice - I don't expect to have a perfect dog but this is dd's home too and I feel so sorry for her. This is not how I expected life with our dog to be - I don't mean that I didn't expect to put time and effort into training him and we have done this in spades, also hiring a behaviourist to help us, but I can't afford to have her back again right now. I feel so sad and have started to wonder if we are the right home for him.....

" Ignoring him (which you are doing) and praising the absolute tiniest bits of friendly behaviour are the way forward."

That won't do anything to help the underlying cause of the behaviour...which is why the advice is all short term management and get a behaviourist in.

I rescue dogs (normally showing signs of aggression) thanks for your help there though

The dog is obviously nervous and it's confidence around kids is low. Around children it is likely to be because their behaviour is boisterous and they descend onto the dog too quickly, touching its head etc or pulling it about.

Reward all the good and friendly behaviour, no matter how small.

Hello,

I'm a retired dog trainer / behaviourist and have seen a lot in my career with our beloved furry friends.

My suggestion is; find another dog for your dog to befriend and then start mixing with children. Let the other dog play wth kids and your dog can observe and learn. On the other side your child must learn to not be nervous. It is 80% the owners and %20 the dog! If your child becomes nervous the dog will sense it and follow your child's lead. Maybe you as a parent should teach child and dog the basics again in how to have fun together. I could go on and on ... There a so many ways and solutions you got to find the one that works for you, your dog and everyone else in the family. Like us - dogs are individuals and learn things differently to others. Get someone in who can see everything in a different prospective.

Best of luck

Ps: I have not rad everyone's reply so if this is a repeat as someone has already mentioned it - I do apologise.

As requested, here is the furry little sod
Thanks so much everyone!! Sorry for the delay in replying, we've been clearing out dd's bedroom (I need alcohol!) and then out for a long walk. I'll attempt to answer everyone's posts, apologies if I miss anything out
Dd is not scared of the dog herself but of the way he may react with her friends. She is very good with him and he is very responsive to her - the mini poodle owners who have posted have it spot on when they say this is a sensitive breed and devoted to the owners. He definitely seems to have a lower threshold for stress then a lot of other breeds - had we known that, we may not have gone for this breed but I am allergic to shedding breeds so that limited our choices a bit and we wanted an active breed. He loves walks and will take as much walking as you can give him - unlike one poster's poodle though, he really needs his walks and can become quite hyper if not walked for at least an hour a day, so we make sure he gets plenty of exercise and training at home as well.
He has never been told off for being aggressive - we have only ever used positive reinforcement when training him, as did his trainer at the classes we took him to. We do reward all good behaviour and teach him choices to make that will get him a reward but as at least one person has said, dogs all have different characters and some are more fearful than others. We struggled with this for a long time as we felt it must be our fault that he is the way he is and that we had let him down somehow, until I came across an article (can't remember the author's name but can look it up if anyone's interested) a few months ago, written by a behaviourist in the US and talking about this exact issue. Essentially, she said that you can have a dog from a puppy, do everything right training- and socialisation-wise (or at least not do anything really wrong or that would make your dog fearful/aggressive) and still have these issues.

We did a lot of research before we got our dog and yes, he did come from a responsible breeder. Both parents had all relevant health checks, we met the mother with the pups in the family home and saw the home environment and were in weekly contact with the breeder from when puppy was 3 weeks old, which is when we chose him. I have been in touch with her about these issues a few months back, before we had the behaviourist round, but the breeder has now moved back to Spain (she is Spanish but has lived in the UK for many years, her husband's business was impacted by Brexit so they decided to move back, with our dog's mother), and cannot therefore take him back, were we to decide he cannot stay with us. She was mystified as she had had not reports of similar issues from the owners of the other 3 pups in the litter - although I suppose they might just not have told her.
I am aware that you cannot just put a dog in a crate and that you need to crate train. We did, for some weeks, but got almost nowhere although trying to set up a crate under the coffee table is a great idea and one we'll definitely look at, thank you to the people who suggested that .
I'm so grateful for all the supportive replies on here and also very grateful to know that other people have had similar issues - it feels quite isolating sometimes when it seems like every other dog you see is super-friendly with people and we have had some very judgemental looks and comments when we ask people not to stroke him or let their children stroke him. The best thing for him is to let him make the choice about whether he wants to say hello or not - if he is given freedom to approach people on his terms, he will either ignore them or decide he likes them and ask for a fuss by head-butting or putting a paw on their leg - if he does this, we know he is fine to be stroked by that person. unfortunately, he never wants to say hello to children, even the bigger ones, but will just ignore them when out and about unless they approach him and make him feel threatened - then the barking starts! He sounds very like the dog upthread (sorry, can't go back a page to check name!), who is quite aloof with most people - our boy would make a huge fuss if anyone tried to take him away from us. He can , however, be left for up to 4 hours at home with a kong and the radio on, as long as he's had a decent walk.

He's absolutely gorgeous. I was told by a very knowledgable person in the mini poddle breed club that the black ones have the easiest most laid back temperament and that the brown and red ones are the most temperamental I really love the red and brown ones but it put me off so I chose a black one. Over the years a couple of dog groomers have said the same thing.

Anewcareerforme, I've heard that as well but only since we got our boy! I wonder why it's the case? Ironically, we were in fact due to have a black mini but it was a smaller litter than the breeder expected so we lost out!
Temperamental is right though - my neighbour popped up this morning and although our dog has met him several times and likes him, he still stood in the doorway barking at him (guarding the house maybe?) but then put his paws up on my neighbour's leg for a stroke - still barking though! I do feel slightly heartened by the replies I've had on here and we will persevere - as you know, they're a very clever breed so I think he does get what's expected of him but can't always control his emotional response and that's what we need to work on

www.facebook.com/groups/1633448230248202/

This group is great if you're on Facebook - loads of great training stuff and you can get recommendations for a behaviourist if you need them.

There are very successful positive training protocols that help actually deal with the underlying emotional responses...they're of limited use to my dog because the health issues are ongoing and so he'll never be 'fixed' but, they do work.

Oh and the reason you always feel like it's just your dog is that everyone with reactive dogs are walking them in quiet places keeping their dogs at under threshold distance from triggers, lol... so I'd only ever be seen on the horizon jumping into a bush with a dog on a lead and a tube of primula in my hand, rofl, but there are definitely lots of people with dogs with issues.

I'm happy to be corrected here but is it because red is not a dominant colour so you have to have two dogs carrying it and its not that common (although I understand it's much in demand)? So you have a smaller gene pool to choose from and therefore you're dog is more likely to inherit characteristics that are less desirable.
I can't remember the exact order re temperament and colour but the colours most would associate with poodles black, white apricot were Im sure at the top of the list for temperament and the new (for want of a better word) colours brown red were at the bottom.

tabulahrasa - the image that conjured up was hilarious!
Thanks for the link, I'll definitely join the group and have a look at their resources. Our behaviourist is really good but she's been on maternity leave and only starts work again next month - although by then I may be able to afford her again!
Sorry your dog has health issues, that must make things extra hard work at times - he sounds lovely, do you find that people stereotype his breed? Only asking as I think we suffer with that the other way round - my brother and SIL in the US have 6 rescue dogs and 5 are pitties; people see their dogs and think 'big and scary' and keep a distance when they are all big marshmallows, people see our fluffy chap and think 'small and cute', come too close and invade his space and look most affronted when he barks

My lovely patient dog groomer apparently refuses to do one red one, she says its nuts and has attempted to bite her on numerous occasions and it so stressed. They're totally booked up for weeks and she said she just doesn't need the hassle.

Anewcareerforme that's interesting, thanks! That sounds like it makes sense - I'll send dd off to research it, she loves having dog-related research to do!
If we ever get another one, I'm going for black!

"people see our fluffy chap and think 'small and cute', come too close and invade his space and look most affronted when he barks"
Maybe that's part of the problem, I've actually heard children say "look mummy a teddy bear" no one would say that about my previous big dogs, in fact in the past I've actually heard people say "keep away its a doberman!" The only danger is that the bloody idiots would love you to death or jump up, knock you over and then stand on you in their desperate attempt to make sure you're alright and kiss you better.

Or at 75lbs of solid muscle crush you to death attempting to fit on your lap.

I've had a toddler point at my puppy and say "look! A pony!"

Definitely genetic,[http://arpeggiopoodles.tripod.com/colorbreedinginpoodles.html here]] is am interesting article obviously not in the UK as piebalds are mentioned and they're not recognised by the breed club here. My groomer says that most blacks fade to grey, mine is still black black and apparently that's unusual. 6 now apparently he will stay black apart from when he really ages he'll get a few white hairs around his face like most old dogs. That could be crap but I know the breeders, who only bred blacks, all he older dogs i.e. 4+ were grey.

"do you find that people stereotype his breed?"

Yes.

He doesn't get any leeway at all, he's actually never bitten, what he does is a big noisy display (I know he would in the wrong circumstances and because of his great big head it would potentially be a bad bite, so that's why I'm so careful with him) but I do get dirty looks, comments and a few times huge tirades about 'dogs like that' but what he actually does is very similar to what you often see small dogs doing with no-one commenting, lots of lunging and barking.... usually at dogs as it's easier to keep people away.

But I had people who would comment/ say things like that when he was younger and fine too.

And yes I think people do ignore 'cute' dogs behaviour and try to stroke them anyway. At one point years ago I had a little spaniel cross who would bite, quite badly in fact and a big black mongrel who was lovely, friendly and well adjusted, people would always want to say hello to the little muzzled fluffy dog who I was having to body block and totally ignore the other one just sat there wagging his tail.

here's another more complicated article.

and Here it says it's a "rare gene" so definitely a much smaller gene pool. Black is dominant so if you breed black poodles you have a larger gene pool; more options to out cross for desirable characteristics like temperament/health.

I so wish people wouldn't stereotype based on breed [sigh] - although Anewcareerforme and thanks for the articles. Our boy's mother came from Spain so at least he was bred from a wider gene pool and she's apricot, the father is red. We have had a lot of comments on the unusual colour and have wondered if he will fade to apricot but no sign so far.

We love big dogs but our circumstances aren't right at the moment to have one. We did some fostering for a rescue before we decided to take the plunge and get our own dog and we had mainly staffies and staffie crosses with us (which is when I discovered I had become allergic to shedding dogs since my childhood, which was the last time I lived with a dog). We noticed that whenever we walked them, a lot of people would give us disapproving or nervous looks and on one occasion, when we got on the tube with one, a man sitting several seats away got up and moved and we heard him remark to the people further down the carriage 'better safe than sorry' . This was the dog that would insist on cramming herself onto one of our laps on tubes and buses .

We've had the 'teddy bear' comment a lot with our boy - along with 'it looks like a toy', to which my dd's muttered response is usually 'until he bites your finger'. Seriously, it really pisses me off that people think it's ok to just come up and shove a hand in his face before asking if it's ok to stroke him but we now watch out for that and can head it off - although some people don't seem to believe us and stand there waggling their fingers at him (yes, lady on the bus yesterday, I'm talking to you - when we said he doesn't like being stroked by strangers, especially when he's trying to have a snooze, we did mean it!).

I think tabulahrasa that you're right about smaller dogs getting away with things that would be seen as a problem in bigger dogs - we've tried to be conscious of that and not allow our boy to do things that we wouldn't want a bigger dog to do but because he's fluffy, there is the assumption that he will be cuddly. People don't seem to get that we have this breed because they're non-shedding and very bright and active, not because we wanted a fluffy toy! I have also had some hilarious comments from some of the elderly ladies we meet in the park - along the lines of 'I never used to like poodles, they used to breed them with those silly pompoms on the tails'! rofl

"Our boy's mother came from Spain so at least he was bred from a wider gene pool"
Not necessarily dog breeders seem pretty international these days.
Love the comment about pompoms on tails. Mines of to the groomer on Friday currently looking more scruffy bear than poodle, or perhaps I should say more doodle than poodle! He'll have a small pompom on his tail when he comes back and sometimes the cat just gawps in amazement his face saying
"what the hell have they done to that bloody dog now?"

Just popping on to say it's not the little fluffy dogs that get this.
You'd be staggered at the amount of people who make an extra special effort to touch the greyhound I've told them is scared of strangers.
Totally ignoring the friendly, waggle one right next to them who adores a fuss .
I've given up explaining and just tell them she's rolled in fox mess. Much more effective!