Toy aggression towards a child

[Sirrahsim]

Ruby is a little rough around the edges but up until this point there was nothing serious. However, over the last few days she has started a very frightening defensive growl with teeth bared when my 4 year old gets too close to her treat or toy. The first time was out of the blue and we took her toy away, used the growly "NO!" and put her on her back until she was submissive. We have tried twice since then by having her restrained and bringing my son close to her and she reacted the same. How do we nip this in the bud immediately? We will NOT tolerate any sort of aggression towards our children!

[luvofallhorses]

Well, putting her on her back isn't going to solve your problem. That is SO old school and not only scares the crap out of the dog and can make the problems you have worse. Have you done NILIF with her? If not I would start now.
http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm

[Karen]

What kind of training are you doing with her? This is the sort of thing that it is important to address right away. Has she had any obedience training or classes yet?

[Varga]

It is not aggression, it's resource protection. And I know this sounds wrong, but in some way you DO want your dog to keep her natural instinct to give warning. If you keep ignoring her warnings, or teaching her to suppress them, she will very likely conclude that she needs to make her warning more clear and skip the growling and displaying of teeth and go straight to biting.

So you do not need to teach her that protecting is wrong. What you need to teach her is that it is not needed.

Best way to teach her that she doesn't need to protect her food/toys, is to offer a trade. Trade one toy/treat for another toy/treat and she will soon learn that you (or in this case, your kid) is not out to steal anything and actually it is beneficial for her to let go of something she initially thinks needs to be protected.

Since you are dealing with a kid here though, I would also make it an unbendable house rule, to never disturb the dog when she is eating. Both for the sake of the kids and for the dog.

[lizbud]

It is not aggression, it's resource protection. And I know this sounds wrong, but in some way you DO want your dog to keep her natural instinct to give warning. If you keep ignoring her warnings, or teaching her to suppress them, she will very likely conclude that she needs to make her warning more clear and skip the growling and displaying of teeth and go straight to biting.

So you do not need to teach her that protecting is wrong. What you need to teach her is that it is not needed.

Best way to teach her that she doesn't need to protect her food/toys, is to offer a trade. Trade one toy/treat for another toy/treat and she will soon learn that you (or in this case, your kid) is not out to steal anything and actually it is beneficial for her to let go of something she initially thinks needs to be protected.

Since you are dealing with a kid here though, I would also make it an unbendable house rule, to never disturb the dog when she is eating. Both for the sake of the kids and for the dog.

Agree 100%. It really works & it's so much easier & calmer to teach your
dog this way.

[Sirrahsim]

Thank you for the input. We will work with her and make this behavior a thing of the past!