Our Dog Bites the Baby

We have a 9 year old Terrier mixed breed (I was told she is mixed with a Beagle), at around 38 lbs she's, smart, easy to train, and very gentle and friendly with people. Until our son was born that is...

We have a 15 month old boy that is really starting to get around and we've had two incidences were the dog has nipped the baby. This has frighten my wife to the point that we are thinking of getting rid of the dog. Actually she has made up her mind; I'm not totally convinced it's our only choice.

After the baby was first born it was apparent that the dog was some what jealous, but as time when by she seemed to deal with it. At least until the first time she nipped at John, our son. It just so happens the first time it happened my wife was filming John playing with the dog and caught the whole thing on tape. She explained that he was crawling towards the dog, trying to touch her, and all of a sudden the dog nipped at him.

I reviewed the tape and was shocked! Then I reviewed it again. What my wife failed to see were the warning signs leading up to the attack. The dog was obviously nervous about having this little person crawling towards her and on several occasions moved to get out of the way. My wife unknowingly continued to coax her to sit and let the baby get near her. The dog finally had enough and struck out. I wasn't blaming my wife (and still do not blame my wife)for the incident, she just didn't know. After pointing out the warning signs we both agreed to not push the issue of them being together and to keep an eye on them when they were. I might mention that that Sandy, our dog, is an indoor dog and usually parks herself on the couch just above where John plays.

Everything has been fine for that past few months, I have noticed an occasional "Pet me first!" when I come through the door but she has always been like that. I have noticed that if the dog is laying on the couch and John climbs around her, she'll move. Of course she always looks at me when she does move and I tell her "Good Girl". Well last Wednesday my wife left John playing out in the living room, of course all the gates were up, and the dog was on the couch. I few minutes later she heard a growl and John screaming. Sure enough she had nipped him again. As in the first incident she left a single fang mark on his forehead.

We talked to our vet about this on Saturday, my wife wanted to know "what our option were". Basically he said we could give her away, keep the baby and dog apart until John is a bit older (my wife feels this is not possible, I don't agree), or some people even put the pets down.

At first I thought, well this is two times, we don't need a third resulting in a serious injury to our son, we'd never forgive ourselves. Maybe it's time to find her a new home, but there is only one problem.

Our dog has problems with her stomach at times, we were previously told it was a mild case of pancreatitis and a flare up causes her to mess in the house once in a great while. The vet we spoke with on Saturday mentioned it could also be nervousness causing it, possibly separation anxiety. Whatever the case we have to feed her Science Diet Lite, and split her feeding up over 4 times a day. What I'm getting to is that because of this our chances of finding a home for her are slim to none. This brought about the mention of putting her down. I can NOT in good conscience put my dog, a companion of 9 years, down because we can't find another solution to this problem.

My wife has put it on me "Your son should come first!", and he does! But I want to make sure, as the vet said on Saturday, that we don't make a hasty decision based on last Wednesdays incident. Wait a few days, then discuss it. Well my wife has already made up her mind.

I, on the other hand, have been doing a lot of soul searching over the past day and a half and a lot of observing. While talking to the vet Saturday the topic was about the dog being jealous. I don't think this is the case. As I mentioned earlier, she appears to be afraid of John and tries at all cost to avoid him. I've seen this with her and little dogs, too. I consider her to be a medium sized dog at 38lbs. She doesn't know what to think of them when they try to sniff her and she scoots away when they get to close. She has no problem playing or exchanging greetings with larger dogs or other terriers.

I was hoping to just keep them separated until John is a bit bigger. We have gates up to keep his play area in the front room. My wife says she has plans of child proofing the back of the house and opening it to him, he needs more room, and this would make it impossible to separate them.

I also can't get past the fact that both incidents have happened when I haven't been around, and wonder if the dog just knows better than to try anything when I'm around or that my wife doesn't watch close enough when the two of them are together? Then again, should she have to? Which is her point and it may be a very valid point!

Do you think there is any chance of salvaging this? or do you think I am all wet and the writing was on the wall the first time the dog bit John?