How to handle 'nipping' dog

[hihimr]

I am not a dog owner, and full disclosure I'm not a dog lover, but would appreciate some feedback/suggestions on how to manage a situation, and whether I am overreacting.

I have DS5.
DSIL has a 3 year old staff.

The dog has been extremely energetic, jumpy, 'nippy', since puppyhood. It's been a bug bear of ours that (we feel) very little has been done to try and train or control her. No training etc, and DSIL has never really stopped from the dog jumping over (sometimes scared) DS. Never shut in a different room etc even for short periods of time, just half hearted 'stop jumping' shouted from across the room. We always just shadow DS as much as possible to protect him and ward off the dog!

DSIL truly believes that the dog is good hearted and would never ever hurt a child. She allows lots of rough and tumble interactions between her own children and the dog, and to my knowledge there has never been an incident.

We actually didn't see them for a while because of it, but never actually addressed it verbally. Trying to avoid the family fallout, and we were hoping she would grow out of it once no longer a puppy. However, it's appears to have gotten worse and today she 'nipped' DS's hand hard enough to mark. (In one of the few moments I wasn't shadowing him/warding the dog off).

To clarify, the dog was not sleeping or disturbed, or frightened by DD. The dog was trying to play. I would also say that I don't think the dog is aggressive.

I removed us from the situation pretty much immediately.

My feeling DH needs to address with DSIL that we will no longer attend events when the dog is there. I don't think it's a bad spirited dog, but it's not controlled. However, I'm very much not a 'dog person' and I wanted to get some opinions as to whether I am being reasonable to say that enough is enough.

So I guess I would appreciate feedback on whether;

• This is normal and responsible dog ownership behaviour?
• It's fair to call it a 'nip' if it's bruised? When does it become a bite?
• AIBU to say that my DS won't be around this dog for the foreseeable? (Even if it causes a royal falling out!)

Thank you.

I do agree it's a nip but that doesn't make it OK!

Lots of dogs are nippy as pups, and it's an excitement thing that they should grow out of.3 is very late for this behaviour to be ongoing, and it absolutely needs management

Our current dog is a 1.5 yr collie mix and she's grown out of the nipping stage but because of the collie in her I don't trust it not to appear with too much excitement so we use lots of preventatives wven though its not happened for months.We don't allow her to play running games with the kids that get her overhyped for example

When it was more prevalent, we used to keep her on a lead around visitors to allow us to manage her excitement levels, she wasn't allowed to jump up (because jumping and nipping seem to go hand in hand for her), she also needed to be crates if she was too hyped, or shut away to calm.

With management although shes an exceptionally mouthy dog, she's never nipped anybody outside of the adults in our house and hasn't nipped in months because we can prevent the perfect storms for it happening

With a 3 year old dog they should absolutely be doing all that they can to prevent it. It's critical especially for staffs because a nip (even when playful) can really blooming hurt, but also create a situation where someone reports it for a dog bite and its labbeled as an aggressive dog and pts. It's a really dangerous situation for that dog

For us the nipping is dangerous for people obviously but a situation that's dangerous for the dog.

If you had a dog that jumped up and regularly knocked people over then you'd have to work on it, just like you can't let your kid randomly hit people even it they are playing

My son is too rough when he plays superheros thus for we keep an eye out when he's playing because we know it's a risk, if we have visitors we have half an ear out for any mention of "you're the bad guy and I'm defeating you" because we know it over hypes him and he's likely to shovey. We Don't just say ah he wrestles people if he thinks your a baddy sorry, we also watch for when the playful trussles turn too much like any parent

It's completely reasonable to not want that dog around, and to ask the owner to take reasonable steps

I'd be absolutely mortified if it was my dog, and you'd not need to ask me to shut her away

Just adding my voice to everyone else's. It is not normal or okay for a dog to be nipping at three years old. Fine for a puppy. They are very mouthy but they grow out of it/ are trained not to do it. It sounds like this dog is under trained and under exercised mentally and physically.

More than likely she’s not as bad with them because they’re less exciting, your DS isn’t always there, so higher arousal levels.

She sounds like an untrained overly excitable dog, so I wouldn’t be hugely worried that she’s likely to escalate into aggression, she very probably is just wanting to play with your DS and has never been taught how to do that appropriately.

But, that kind of almost doesn’t matter, because she has hurt him, it’s fairly irrelevant whether she meant to or not if her owners aren’t going to stop her.