I have seen a few posts on dog bites. While my dog hasn't ever bitten
a child, she has, for the first time growled at ours. My dog is Sam,
a 7 year old boxer. She had never bitten anyone and the only time she
has ever growled at me, is if I try to move her when she is sleeping.
I have always raised my dogs where I can take food out of their mouths
while eating, she has never growled even when I or my wife take a
piece of treat out of her mouth. I always knew we would have children
and tried to prepare for the event through training.
My son is 10 1/2 months old and has been crawling for a month now.
His favorite pasttime is crawling up to Sam and our mix breed dog.
Both dogs have been VERY tolerant of him and we never leave him and
the dogs out of our site. Always supervised interactions.
Anyway, my son crawled up to Sam, who was laying down..no biggie, but
I didnt realize she was sleeping. My son procedes to "pat" her a
couple times on the back I start to get up and tell the boy no..I
hear the dog give a growl as I am about to pick the child up(step
away) the dog jumps up and growls visciously, knocks child over and
growls in his face...never bit, but looked like she could have.
I immediately yell at the dog "NO!!!!!NO!!!!NO!!!!" and she wags
here tail. puts head down and retreats. Believe me when I say that
she has always been around children and never showed aggression. What
should my next course of action be? My child will always come first,
but I feel a responsiblity to our beloved dog. I know I am at fault
for becoming to complacent with their relationship. The dog has
ALWAYS showed great affection for our son. Any help would be
appreciated.

-John
PS. Sam has been to obedience classes, is pretty well trained and has
always been more of a submissive dog...not dominant at all.