re: Dog just snapped at daughter

quote:

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I went through this with a German Shepherd. One of the saddest days of my life- but can't own a dog that growls at my child.

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Now, it will vary from dog to dog, but getting a well-bred "protective" breed, like a GSD, can pay dividends. We had one of those fancy, overbred (for temperament mainly, I mean his dad was a champion, but we never showed him because he wasn't all crazy angular as was the popular style) GSD and he growled exactly once: my sister had a reckless, high energy Boxer (aren't they all?) who was bouncing around the backyard with my kids. Now, my son was pretty much a pansy then at age 11 or 12 and he was trying to manage the 2 dogs that were his size or bigger and both much stronger to try to get them some water. My girls were out there, too. Anyway, my sister's dog bumps into the boy pretty hard and he says, "Ow!" Our GSD then let out a low, strong growl at my sister's dog. The way it was described to me was, the girls, the boy and the Boxer all froze in place like someone hit the pause button. They all got along fine after that.

That was the only time our GSD ever growled. Now, he barked, whimpered and cried a lot. He got pushed around by a Chihuahua. But, that Boxer that was not in his immediate family was not going to make his kids say, "Ow!"