At wits end with 3 year old and dog

[thissoundsbad]

Cross posting from parenting as I'm just desperate for advice

I know how terrible this sounds and I do want to preface it by saying I have had my dog for 5 years and do love him very much.

My 3 year old was never particularly interested in the dog and hadn't had any issues. A few months ago however he just became a nightmare. He won't leave him alone, he follows him everywhere, tries to full body hug him, gives him loads of kisses, saying he's hugging him but he has him in a headlock, sits on him, climbs on him, whenever the dog is sat somewhere comfy he beelines for him until he moves. I obviously don't allow these things and I'm forever having to pull him off him. When I have to forcibly remove him, or when I see him heading for him and I physically stop him (nothing aggressive, just pick up walk away) he has nuclear tantrums. Overall he's very reasonable and can communicate well, the only tantrums of this severity are always linked to the dog. He will go for gold and scream and cry and hit and scratch and even wee and shout that he wants to get the dog and that he's cross so he is going to wee on me. Again this behaviour never happens outside of being told to leave the dog alone.

I'm heavily pregnant and having a hard time in general, and I'm totally worn down. I've tried reward charts, ignoring the bad and praising the good but it's difficult because I have to physically intervene here as it's involving an animal. The best outcome is if I can see that he's heading in his direction and I can distract him without having to intervene and physically stop him but this only works if he's not overly determined and was just wondering over there, if he's decided he's going to the dog then he doesn't stop and I have to physically intervene and then he goes mental on me for an hour.

I'm trying to leave the dog in a different room, he goes and hunts him down. I can't bare it anymore. I've started sending him to afternoon club after school just to avoid the situation and it makes me feel guilty that I'm choosing my dog over my son, he's only going to be this little once and I'm sending him away because I don't know how to sort his behaviour out around the dog. I don't understand why this is the only issue. My dog went to stay with my mum for a week when I nearly had a breakdown I was so fed up and it was the calmest week, he just didn't have any tantrums

I honestly don't think I can deal with having a dog and a child anymore. It's been a few months of this now and we aren't getting anywhere. Please help,

Dog is a cavalier and is an absolute softie but doesn't deserve this

I’m going to try clicker training with my insane three year old! Crazy tip which definitely has my attention. He’s not too tantrummy when we tell him he can’t do things but he has zero interest in doing the things we do tell him to do. I’m trying to praise the shit out of any small thing in the hope of the positive reinforcement…. Clicker training would slide right in. My cav is almost 8 now so not heard his clicker in years, wonder if he still remembers it means treats!

My dog trainer once accidentally trained her toddler to come back to her at the sound of a clicker when she was training her dog recall 😁 she said it was incredibly useful

My dog has pretty impeccable recoil so it was a shock to the system when DS learnt to crawl/walk and he didn’t have it. He also didn’t have “wait” or “quiet”. Not sure why I never considered training him like a dog 😅

I didn't realise how effective it was until DD was being a right ratbag on the bus when I was tired/coming back from work/shopping/childminder with her and after a couple of times asking her to stop standing up, I instructed her to 'SIT!' and her bum hit the seat instantly as she made exactly the same huffing sound that the dog did.

When my daughter was being a dick to our dog at a similar age, I basically sat all my kids down and explained dog body language and how to tell them you them in dog language.

It's one thing to say hugging the dog is bad, but have you given him an alternative to express his love to your dog? Have you also shown him how what he's doing is unkind? I was catching them laying across the dog and telling them not to wasn't cutting it. So when we sat down I sat almost ontop of them and leant onto the kids(carefully do I didn't hurt them) and asked how it felt. After that I never had the issue again. 3 year olds can just be told no, they need to be shown why and how to achieve what they want appropriately.

First of all, huge sympathy! Sounds like a tough one and very draining.

One thing to try is teaching him a different, more positive way to interact with the dog. He’s old enough to do some very basic training games (sit, stay, come, paw) and give the dog a treat when it responds correctly. Close supervision obviously, but it gets them playing in a way that doesn’t involve just hugs, and he’ll get the two things he craves: time with the dog and your attention while he’s doing it. Then “ok, time for (dog) to have a rest now”, leave dog in one room and take DS into another to watch a favourite cartoon for a bit. Avoids the flashpoint when the game ends, and you get to put your pregnant feet up.

My ds is 4 and is like this with our dogs I think it’s partly an attention thing because they know you can’t ignore it. However I also have a theory from watching my dc and others that little boys just love to play rough and they need to have an outlet for that. In all fairness my dogs actually quite enjoy a bit of toddler wrestling although I obviously don’t encourage it because of the risk of it getting out of hand, but I think it’s important that kids have an outlet for that energy somewhere and maybe he needs some rough play with a human to help get it out the system.

Definitely need to separate them, he’s only 3 you are never going to crack it otherwise and soon you will have another baby to look after too.

I had two children with 21mth gap, for the dogs sake they were always kept separate, we would make a fuss of the dog, when the kids went to bed. Not ideal, but it is possible, our dog was 7 when we had for first child. No way would we have even considered re-homing for a minute, we had him till he was sadly pts at 13yrs.

Good luck OP.

This is what I was thinking. Even without the dog the new baby might have a similar effect. I think nursery for the toddler and more holidays at your mum's for the dog.