Puppy being aggressive towards DS

[Opoly54]

I have contacted a behaviourist, I’m just waiting for a reply but thought I’d come here for advice in the mean time.

Our pup is 8 months old, spaniel/terrier cross breed. Over the last few weeks we’ve seen some behaviour towards DS that looks aggressive.

The first incident was when DS startled him awake, he was obviously scared and growled/snapped the air. I take full responsibility for that and had a long talk with DS about respecting pups space, leaving him alone when he was sleeping etc. That was about a month ago. Over the last week or so we’ve had a few incidents:

-he growled at DS when DH hugged him on arriving home from work
-growled and snapped the air at DS when he approached DH sitting on the sofa with pup next to him

This happened last night and so today I asked DS to come into the kitchen and give him a treat, he jumped at DS again growling and snapping.

My plan is to get DS to throw a treat on the floor for him everytime they’re in the room together. To not allow pup on sofa to sleep or sit next to DH and for DH not to hug DS in-front of pup (whilst we’re dealing with this at least).

DS is calm around pup, doesn’t rough and tumble with him but is obviously now feeling nervous around him.

Any suggestions or experiences gratefully received! I’m really worried about this and I’m desperate for things not to escalate and to do the best by our puppy.

Ihaventgottimeforthis that’s really interesting, the behaviourist did talk about this. She compared it to a hectic day in work with lots of little stresses building up and said we should enforce more rest than we think he needs. She also said the chemical released when a stressful incident happens can take days to leave their system.

Hey @Opoly54, how are things? How are you getting on with following the behaviourists advice?

Great, thanks for asking. We’ve had no further incidents since taking the behaviourist’s advice. We’re still monitoring things closely, DS is being super calm and sensible around pup. We’ve been using the same living room as pup in the evening for a couple of days now and everything’s been fine. We are taking things very slowly and cautiously though as we’ve put in a lot of effort, it would be a shame to undo it all now. Very proud of DS and how well he’s handled it all. He’s back in school now which has also helped as pup is getting plenty of attention and quiet time during the day and DS is getting all my attention when he gets home so it’s easier to balance. It’s been exactly 2 weeks since it last happened.

Well done, OP. And well done for waiting for professional advice. Some of the advice here was well meant but dangerous. I had my heart in my throat reading it but was relieved to see your latest post

The reality is that aggression towards children in the home always warrants a professional review and support. It is not something that can be assessed from just a brief online post and so not something that can be "fixed" that way either.