Last night, we had a couple and their two year old boy over for dinner.
How did our pups do? Well, Jujube was an angel, like always. She's such a sweetie and we're so glad that we have her. For one thing, it's so nice to say to a child that while you can't touch that one (referring to Loki), you can pet and hug this one (Jujube).
Loki is slowly improving with kids, but he's still quite wary. He didn't bark at the child as much as he has in the past with other kids of that age. But he did growl on two occasions.
The first growl came when the boy went to pet Loki. Growl. I had to explain that he could pet the dog with the pink collar, but not the dog with the green collar. Good thing this kid already knew his colors.
The boy was having quite a bit of fun with Jujube. She stood there and let him do pretty much anything to her. Pet her, hug her, follow her around. After he had his fun hugging Jujube, he suddenly went to hug Loki. In that split second, my heart simultaneously raced and stopped. Loki let out his warning growl, and we all shouted at the boy to let Loki go.
His mom asked, "Oh but he won't bite, right?"
I immediately replied that Loki might. Even after a year of no bites, I still remain cautious about Loki, especially around children. I do tell people that he will bite. I sense that Yun may disagree with me on this. Yun probably wouldn't want to alarm people the way I do. But I absolutely do not want any kids getting bit by Loki, and a good, honest warning will prevent that from happening.
In the end, I think Loki was great. He gave the boy warning growls with nothing more. The boy heeded those warnings and Loki learned that a warning growl is a sufficient to communicate his displeasure. Of course, I'd prefer Loki to be more like Jujube in his friendliness towards children, but I'm happy with what I've got so far. Loki may never truly be good with children, but with ever experience, he gets just a little bit better.
2 comments:
Glad to hear that there is progress and that the worst Loki did was give warning growls. I agree with you, he did excellent. Baby steps, pun intended... ;)
I agree - he did really good. This is why I can't correct my dogs when they growl. I appreciate the growl.
And I agree with your alarming people. It's better that they are cautious than not, you know? I say the same about Kitsu. He's only bit me one time, but he also barks at people and kids... so I'm always way cautious.
Yay for Juju. She sounds like our Tsuki :) I too wish Kitsu would be more like Tsuki with other people.
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