Shih tzu Biting

Davy1020

Dear all
Looking for some advise please. My sister took a 2 year old Shih Tzu in a 2 year old Shih Tzu about 2 Months ago. Her friend recently had a baby and they felt they could not keep the dog also. Up until a week ago everything was more or less going fine apart from his stage habit of dry humping blankets. His attention has now turned to my 8 year old niece and he has started to follow her everywhere and has a strange unhealthy obsession with her. Now things have got worse as he bite her on the arm last week and would not let go for her arm until my niece finally got her arm free. Over the weekend he has now bite her again along with the Mother. My attitude is the dog must go no questions asked. My sister knows she has to put the safest of her daughter first as well as her own - so before she has to consider getting rid of him as finding him a new home any advise? The other problem is she will find it difficult to re house him and most of your friends who might consider taking a dog in have kids - and if the Dog has to leave my sisters because of this - she cannot pass him onto another household with Children.

barbiegirl

Was it a bite that broke the skin, or a bite for attention? That is the first question as in was it in anger or in play. How serious was the incident? Our own dog lacked socialisation up to 6 months, he's a rescue, and he still occasionally mouths for attention. We consistently, having consulted a behaviourist, correct the behaviour.
For me the first stop would be a behaviourist rather than getting rid of the dog. To be honest i'm fed up with the attitude of we have a baby so we can't have a dog. People have 9 months to prepare the dog, which they took on as a life time committment for the arrival of a baby. The failure to do this is the original owners fault NOT the dogs.
Dogs follow children because they sense fun with them. My own dogs growing up followed us everywhere and it wasn't considered unhealthy.
Get the dog some training and speak to a proper behaviourist.

Davy1020

Many thanks for your reply. I agree with your statement that having a baby is not a good excuse to get rid of a dog. My sister thought that also but felt she had to give him a new home. The bite did not brake the skin but did leave the Child had bruised and swollen. He may be he just looking for attention but worried the bites will get worse.

SpyderCats

Hi

I have a Shih Tzu that follows me everywhere I go. Not in annoying or demanding way, just waddles around after me so I think that's part of the Shih Tzu traits.

As for the biting! he could be developing small dog syndrome, its where the dog decides that they are the boss of you usually because somebody had spoilt them rotten.

It started to happen with my dog when he was a puppy, he started barking at me when he wanted attention or to play with him, which was all the time, I tried putting him into another room when he did this but it didn't work. Eventually my husband got fed up one night as we were trying to have a conversation and Harvey kept barking, my husband said in a really load voice RAWR, Harvey ran with the fright and when he came back wagging his tail submissively we praised him and said good boy.

The dog maybe trying to take over, if this is the case, I think the problem could very easily be corrected. Shih Tzu's are extremely loving, it would be well worth your while talking to a behaviorist, they make the most amazing family pets, but then again maybe I'm just biased

DBB

One thing you can be pretty sure of... the dog was not following and biting the child in order to assert himself over the child, or to show the child "who's boss". This dynamic is extremely rare in dogs, and highly unlikely to be the case here.
When you say the dog is following the child around... what do you mean? Is he chasing her? Grabbing at her clothes as she goes? Does he ever growl at her? And what, exactly, happened before the dog bit the child?
A bite leaving bruises is not terribly serious from the point of view that the dog could do real harm if he wanted to. BUT, we have to put that in the context that even though a dog that only bruised someone, it could be really scary to thwe child, and telling the child "he didn't mean to hurt you" may not be very consoling. In addition, as a Shih Tsu, he can't do as much damage whilst biting as longer-nosed, stronger-toothed breeds can, so even though there wasn't huge damage done, it is harder to tell what the dog's intentions were when biting than it is for other breeds.
I would be strongly inclined to contact a behaviourist as it's not terribly clear what exactly the dog is doing, and a behaviourist should be able to work out the intentions of the dog, and what the repercussions may be. As it stands, until you know more about where the dog is coming from, I wouldn't rehome him. And when you do know more about him, certainly it would be sensible to rehome where there are no kids living full-time. Depending on what the behaviourist feels about his intentions when he follows the child, it might be that he needs to find a home where there are rarely children even visiting.