New OES with a 4 year old boy
Any help that you may be able to give would be greatly appreciated! |
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| This is where the raising children and OES becomes difficult - it takes alot of time and energy to raise a well mannered OES puppy - and that's made more difficult when young children are involved too. Training is key - of both child and puppy!
Teach your son some easy commands to give the dog - have him tell the dog to sit and reward the dog's good behavior. It can be intimidating for young children to have a puppy coming at them - usually MOUTH open!  Have your son work with Bentley after Bentley has been "tired out" - so he's easier to handle and not so active.
I had commented on enrolling in an obedience class (positive reinforcement) in another post - you can then get your children involved with his training. That's a great way to establish alpha roles in the family. Good LUck! Kristen |
| I have a 4 yr old son as well...will be 4 in Dec. Anyways remy came to as an adult, and from a family with no kids. She has been great with him.
What I have him and our 5 yr old do is take turns, putting her into sit...give treat...down ...give treat...sit... give treat. and so on We don't play any rough housing games, we keep the inside house mood one of calm and peace...NO running allowed...she will chase them to play. Now she pretty much ignores the going ons of the kids, keeps her eye on them for a tid bit. They are not allowed to feed her from the furniture...that is an off zone for her and a safe zone for the kids. My kids are the ones, who give her the treats not me unless I'm doing a specific training lesson. But they are quite used to having dogs around and perhaps have more confidence than others. If you feel confident she has no food aggression issue, let the kids feed his food as a chore. Let him see the kids eat a cracker before he gets his food. Do not free feed, then in his mind the floor is feeding him, not his pack leader. Pack leaders get the food and distribute the food amongst the group, he should be last to get that food. Check out Stanley Coren at Amazon bookstore...online. He has some great books, about what dogs think. Bentley should always work for his special treats. Anyways, what Brit said too about obedience classes...they really do help. |
| Thank you so much for the great ideas! We have been very lucky that Bentley has had basic obedience already and knows his commands very well. We also have an 8 year old daughter who is very good with the dog and the dog with her so we know that it can be done!
We are planning on putting him into more obedience classes, but unfortunately all of the ones we can find in our area are booked up until January.  We will definitely move forward then.
Our 4 year old is getting more confident every day and we are committed to making this work. We are definitley making progress. Yesterday our son wanted Bentley to go back where he came from, today in preschool he was thankful for his dog. Again, thank you for all of the advice! We will try the great ideas! |
| I fully endorse the feeding idea. Also, read up on what and how dogs think and you will have an amazing relationship with them. I really feel that once you are aware how they think, reason and feel then you can better understand the behaviour and get better results with training. I also agree that your children should be very involved with the training. Trainers will tell you that they are not training the dog, they are training the owners, so it is important the the entire family get involved in the training process.
Good luck to all of you and thank you for adopting an adult dog. |
| Another vote for feeding and getting all the family involved in training. The dog must learn that he has to obey and be nice and he will get patted and sometimes even a treat.
TylersMom is right, once you understand how your doggie works, it will be very easy to train him and get along with him... Sometimes I feel like I can communicate better with my dog than with my neighbor 
It's very important to teach the dog to respect the children and the opposite as well. The neighborhood kids play with lennon, even the little ones, but they know that just because it look like a giant stuffed toy they can treat him like one. He's very gentle with them and besides the ocassional bump, nothing happens. The kids were told not to pull his hair, to wait until he gives the ball back and not to look him in the eyes, and thanks to that, parents let the doggies hang around with babies and sometimes even sniff the carriages. |
| My son is nine and this is our second OES, so he's a bit of an expert, but I had him get involved in feeding Chelsea right away, he scoops food into her bowl and sets it down for her, he also has "hand fed" her a few times, so she knows he is a providor, thus higher in the pecking order. Of course you will want to highly supervise this as you do not want the animal to misunderstand or see this as a threat- just a thought, it worked for us.
She does still jump on him and try to dominate him physically, which he unfortuntely lets her do. Another thing we've done is let him play frisbee and ball with her so that she sees him as being "in charge" of the game. She responds well to him and continues to play fair. Good Luck- he will cherish his childhood memories of having a big floppy fur ball in his life. Up. |
| Just an update. Bentley and the kids are doing much better. We have discovered that by keeping a 4 ft leash on him at all times we can better control him. We actually have 2 children. We have our 4year old feed him in the morning and our 8 year old feed him at night. He is made to sit and stay while they put the food into his bowl. He may not get up until the kids give him the command. If he does move, he has to go back to the beginning and do it all over again. By the child's command. This let's Bentley know that he eats only when the kids allow him to and it has given our 4 year old much more confidence with Bentley.
We're still having our moments, but it is definitely getting better! We are very lucky that he came to us already knowing many of the basic commands. He is so good with his commands, in fact, that the neighbors thought we were dog sitting for my sister who owns 2 sheepies! They were amazed that he was ours. Truth is, so are we! |
| So good to hear. Your doing a wonderful job, and it's nice to hear your son gaining his confidence. It is amazing that even tho they are young are quite capable of doing many things. |
| We finally found an obedience class for Bentley. Everywhere we had checked up until was booked until January. We need help NOW! We just happened to find one at a pet store in our area that we hadn't frequented before. The classes on are Sundays and families are encouraged to attend together. We see this as a great plus!
Thank you for all your help! I am so thankful that I found this board. I have learned so much and feel so much less alone in this. |
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