Dog hates puppies / dogs jumping at his face

[Songbird74]

I have a 2 1/2 year old male lab. He was badly bitten when he was younger by a breed notorious for behavioural issues. Since then, my dog hates dogs grabbing his face in play / jumping at his face.

I saw a behavioural therapist for issues pertaining to the dog attack and was given good pointers on how to keep him calm / distracted etc.

He is great with his dog friends as they are all a similar age, if not older, and they don’t go for his face like a puppy would.

I have started to notice that he hates it if a puppy jumps at his face - he will let out a low growl and always move away from the puppy.

Does anyone know how to combat this behaviour? To be honest, I don’t think he’s ever liked his face being jumped on by other dogs, and he is fine with us (his humans and any body else) touching / cuddling his face and neck, even where he was bitten.

Any advice? I will speak with the therapist again but wasn’t sure if anybody else’s dog is the same!

I should say, I keep my tone of voice calm and I congratulate good interactions. I tend to keep interactions with puppies / new dogs short as my dog prefers his own company or those of his long-term friends. He is distracted with a ball easily. Thanks

To tease out a question - why are you trying to combat it?

It sounds like a perfectly valid preference being handled in a perfectly valid manner.

He doesn't like dogs in his face. Fair enough. (Few do!)

He's given appropriate vocal and visual communication of this without feeling he needs to bite back. This is great as it is clear to the puppy and to you that he needs space from them and gives you the time to get him that space before he uses force.

Is there something specific you are worried about that means you want to change this behaviour?

he will let out a low growl and always move away from the puppy.

This sounds like a perfectly appropriate reaction to me. I think you risk doing more harm by trying to 'combat it'

My cockapoo bitch is the same. She low growls and moves on but sometimes the other dogs persist and she snarls or snaps (never bites) sometimes the dogs persist even more 🙄 I’m usually raging at this point as I’ve started walking away at the first warning and the dog is still following us initiating play. The dogs owners are usually oblivious and I ask them to get their dog onto a lead so we can continue our walking away without being followed. It’s difficult isn’t it

Ah no, that’s fine if it is a common behaviour - I thought it was just my dog! I think because he was so playful before he was attacked when he was a year old, I’m trying to almost get him back into that “playful” spirit, but it’s good to know other dogs don’t like it. My friends dogs love to go for faces / play with puppies but my lad will have a sniff of a puppy and then move on. He rarely plays with other dogs now (only a select few he has known since puppy-hood) which is a shame in the sense that he could get so much out of new interactions, but I’d never want to make him feel uncomfortable / unsettled. Thank you for the advice - it does make me feel better that it is a “normal” behaviour and he is showing an appropriate reaction.

Please don't worry - his behaviour is totally normal and healthy - the other dogs are just being incredibly rude.

It's very poor doggy manners to run over to random dogs and jump in their faces like that. Puppies/teenagers do behave like that sometimes but it's down to the owners to prevent it. Older dogs should be much better behaved and should understand that behaving that way is very rude - but unfortunately many don't as their owners do nothing to stop it.

My own dog was humped by a random off-lead dog that came barrelling over today. I was furious. I'd already shouted to the owner that he wasn't friendly (he is, but doesn't like dogs running over to him like that) - she couldn't recall her dog and even though mine was growling and trying to pull away, the other dog still continued to try and mount him.

It's such poor manners and I'm sorry your dog has to keep putting up with it.

This is perfectly normal behaviour. It's a dog's way of teaching puppies that dogs don't like having other dogs jumping all over them and in their face.

His lack of playfulness with new dogs may be unrelated to being attacked. As they get older, many dogs lose that puppy playfulness and become much more selective about which dogs they want to interact with. So it may just be a natural part of the maturing process in which case I wouldn't worry about it.

Low growling is just your dog saying ‘stop that’ so it’s good that they’re doing that. Mine gets annoyed at puppies doing that and will do a low warning growl, I wouldn’t stop the growling.

I think because he was so playful before he was attacked when he was a year old, I’m trying to almost get him back into that “playful” spirit

It's really common/normal for this playful spirit to fade as a dog grows older. And that does tend to happen sometime after 1 year and before 2 years old. I think the attack at that age may be making you think this is sad that he has lost this - that it must be a consequence of the attack.

The chances are high, that it's not. It's just maturity.

That he has grown into the kind of dog with the right social skills to handle a situation like this, despite the attack, is a great credit to you. Keep doing what you're doing

That’s what my. 8 year old Goldie does.
Hes just telling them to bugger off, it’s fine

Perfect, thank you for the responses! I find that lots of owners don’t stop their dogs from jumping up at my dog and he tries to move away from it - he’s my first dog and I’ve always tried to make sure he is sociable etc, but he’s like a grumpy old man at 2 1/2 years old!

@SirSniffsAlot thank you so much - that really means a lot to me! I love my lad so much and just want to do right by him. Thank you for your lovely comment x

Being sociable doesn't mean happily putting up with rude behaviour from other dogs, though.

Equally, telling rude dogs to bugger off doesn't make him grumpy - it makes him sensible!

Mine (now 4) doesn't like puppies. She will tolerate one for a few seconds but will then firmly tell them to bugger off.
The older your dog gets the more set in his ways he will become... dogs he's known since he was tiny he will probably like, or at least tolerate well. Unknowns less so. Puppies... irritating bouncy little sods.
The problem is puppies tend to want to play with every dog they meet (and I made that mistake myself ) and it's up to owners to check first!!!

Your dog is behaving perfectly reasonably :)

@Sonolanona thank you! I was causing myself stress because my friends dogs seem to play well with puppies and my lad was just like “nope!”. I didn’t know if it was due to his bad experience but I’m feeling reassured that it’s quite normal 🙂

Normal. What a lovely polite dog to behave like that. You’ve obviously done a good job socialising him 🙂

No problem.

We all worry we're doing right by our dogs. Lucky lad to have such a loving home.