Inhibited bite on children’s feet - should I be worried?

[Puppalicious]

3 times in the last 10 days or so, my kids have or have nearly stumbled on our 8 month old puppy, or else must have stood on her long fur, and she has spun around and gone after their feet, putting her teeth around them. Tonight it happened again - it didn’t look like my DS stood on her as he climbed past but perhaps he caught the end of her fur (she’s very long haired). This is new behaviour as I don’t think my children have got especially clumsy in the last 10 days but I’m not sure how to treat it. Obviously I will have to train my children to be much more careful and maybe I will have to stop her coming in to lie in amongst us (although I do like it when she does but the risk of them accidentally catching her when they move is maybe too great). But I don’t know how much I should be telling her off - I read on here that you should never punish a growl as it’s a warning sign so is this the same? Or is this something that could escalate if I don’t take it very seriously/ get behaviourist in? She doesn’t leave a mark, it doesn’t hurt and the children always deny she did anything but I’m there to see it! As I said the first step is to teach the children to be much more careful but accidents can happen (the first time happened when they were playing ball together, the other 2 they barely caught her at all from what I could see) and I don’t want them to get bitten, or her to become a dog that has bit a child!

How old are your children? 3 times is a lot to have nearly stood on a dog.

I'd say her response is a pain/fear response and actually fairly reasonable under the circumstances. The children either need to be more careful, better supervised, or children and dog separated more when trigger points for them being less careful are happening - you know their ages and personalities better.

Concentrate on your children's behaviour around the dog. Not quite sure why you think you need a behaviourist to delay with your dogs reasonable reaction to pain and fear.

The dog needs a safe place away from
The children where there is no danger of being trodden on. stair gates etc to zone your home.

Not sure if it's relevant to this particular scenario but our little dog is very excited by feet.

Ever since puppyhood feet will provoke nipping and biting. Not sure why, they just excite her

Could it be similar?

She is warning them like she would with a sibling/younger puppy. If it doesn't work she might up the intensity of the bite to get the message across. You need to stop them standing on your dog.

They’re 5 and 8. Yeah, it’s a pretty clear way of saying don’t do that….as my 8 year old said on the way to bed, “hey mum, why are you taking this so seriously, she’s saying to your kids to stop standing on her, that’s pretty reasonable….” She’s got a lot bigger recently and is lying among us more in the sitting room (she used to watch protectively from afar before which is a apparently a bit of a collie trait) so I might just have to reiterate to them to be a lot more careful. Or she could become reactive to them which would be terrible. I will really drum it into them to give her her space when they’re walking around.

If your dog's coat is that long, it sounds like it needs a haircut. You are going to find it very hard to manage when it starts to get wet and muddy on walks as well.

@Brownlongearedbat , not a breed you can shave! Yes, bit apprehensive about the winter mud….

I would suggest they stop climbing past her and, for now be mindful of where she is. She may just not like being 'climbed past'.

She is getting older and showing she isn't happy. I would tell your kids, it is serious as it could progress and you are trying to avoid a future problem and injury.

I have always been clear with my kids what the consequences of not following the rules could be. Even at age 5.

You mention a collie thing - is she a pure-bred collie? Herding and nipping at feet/ankles is a fairly common trait in the breed.

I walk collies and they like to herd/round you up and if they're not trained out of it, they do try and nip at ankles. I wonder if it's a mixture of your dog becoming a teenager (where they go backwards in their training in general) and it being part of her breed to nip at ankles.

Yes she is pure bred rough collie

Her herding instincts are not extreme (show dog pedigree) but they are they are there