My dog thinks hair is a toy

petert

My dog Lemmy so far has knocked down 2 kids to chew on their hair like a rag doll. The first child was scared because he knocked her down and was shaking her like a toy. The second he jumped up bit the girl in the arm and was dangling from the back of her head. The second girl instigated the attack or made it worse by running and screaming away from my dog. I explained to the girl later its not a good idea to do that it will probably lead to an attack if its not your dog.
Both incidences happened in a dog park. Children are not recommended to attend a dog park in New York. I don't let him play with children. I need to figure a way to get him out of this behavior. Any suggestions?

JParanee

My dogs get excited and knock small children over also

Rather embarrassing

I have learned to leash them when strange kids are around .

Neil

@petert
A Bull Terrier biting and hanging from the back of a childs head is completely unacceptable.

Dog parks are for sociable animals and people including children, it is clearly a far too over stimulating environment for Lemmy and places him and others in danger.

Please engage the services of a professional dog trainer immediately.
Keep your dog on a leash as you risk being sued, or worse, the dog having to be euthanised.

Djammy

There's not really much to add to what Neil already said here. This is your responsibility as the owner to control and manage and to NOT give the dog ANY other chance to tackle a kid. The second time it happened was already at least one time too much. This can end badly for both - kids AND the dog!

And while you are responsible as the owner, the dog will eventually pay the ultimate price.
It will probably be hard to work on this issue in particular by training, because you would need individuals who are willing to risk the dog grabbing their hair.
This is not the first Bull Terrier or actually dog I heard of going after hair. So, its not completely unnormal, but it IS unacceptable.
To handle this situation and others like that around kids or strangers in general, your dog needs to be absolutely responsive to your voice and interference and needs to realiably follow your fierce "stop" or "no".
Also your dog seems like it could really benefit from some impulse control training in order to not go overboard when excited and maybe learn some alternative behaviors to fall back on.
As long as all of this is not the case, the dog does not have any business near kids, no matter if it was there first or not and the leash should stay on - for the sake of kids that may end up injured AND your dog.

Incidents like that hurt the reputation of the entire breed.

My advice - besides responsible managing - is to engage in lots of obedience training and joint exercise and games to strengthen your bond, channel your dog's energy, enhance your dog's trust in you as a leader and establish some rules - in environments with few distractions and no kids around.

the4thmonkey

When people bring small children to the dog park, I leash my dog and we leave. I don't understand why anyone would bring their little kid to a park full of strange dogs running loose. That is just asking for trouble! Birdie doesn't understand her own strength and knocked a little kid over one day -- that was her last encounter with little kids at the dog park. It was nothing like what you have experienced, but I'm not letting it happen again.

I agree with what everyone is saying here. Your dog simply cannot behave like that or you will have to keep him leashed.

philsergeant

Funny... My Fur KIds love kids, and are pretty gentle when they encounter them, even toddlers.. Our Kids are with us all the time, everywhere, so this is frequent. The only time I have to get really attentive to any possibility that our kids get boisterous is when little kids start screaming and going nuts.... which they are quite entitled to do, but my kids take that as a sign to "play like crazy"... and they do. On the infrequent occasion that we take them to the dog park (more often the dog beach), our fur kids are much more interested in other dogs, not any kids that may be around. That doesn't justify bringing kids to a dog park, because the dogs are a danger enough to the adults, when they hair around at 100mph trying to see who can lead engine the dog train.

petert

I had to limit the exposure of Lemmy when he was a puppy to people who had dogs. Because Lemmy was a little mouthy. He would nibble on everybody. I never brought him to playgrounds where he saw kids yelling and screaming and running. I will have to address this with the next trainer. I was concerned with getting sued because of him mouthing someone and them taking it as him being viscous not as a puppy playing. I have left dog parks because of this and let the owners who bring in small children its not smart to do this because every dog is not like theirs. Most of the people are ignorant who bring their kids one said something about she wasn't going to pay for a babysitter and another said his 2 year old was going to stay on the bench which I saw him leaving every 2 minutes. Instead of going to a corner of the park which had a bench he let his child play on a concrete pad. I hope he wasn't hurt after I left. The father was a jackass bringing his kid there. There were several other dogs over 70 lbs luckily no pit bulls.

JParanee

You say no pit bulls

What do you think you have ?

The term pitbull encompasses

Bull terriers
Staffordshire terriers
American pit bull terriers
American Staffordshire terriers

No bad breeds just bad owners

Djammy

@JParanee, I've SO been holding my tongue all day. But someone HAD to say it.
Well, we don't know yet, what exactly he intended to express by this distinction. But at least the - very sad - implication seems quite obvious indeed.

Jbird

My bullie loves children, and is attracted to them. With her breath alone she can knock a kid under 4 over. I keep her away from kids under 5 as a rule and keep an eye on her with older kids. She has had a lot to do with kids but is still hopeless.

corey90260

@JParanee and Djammy although true we do not know the intention behind the comment as the owner of a mini bull terrier a pit & hound mix and a American pit bull terrier Thank You ! This is the reason I do not take my dogs to a dog park The pic if it works is of my husband and my babies