TO CORRECT OR NOT CORRECT.... - Page 1

I have a 4 mo old Bel. Mal that we are working currently. This weekend, in teaching the "come", she accidently ripped open my nose. Short version.... I was holding the dog as my daughter called her to come. Dog was excitibly jumping around, and caught my nose with her teeth. SHE DID NOT INTENTIONALLY BITE ME!!!! I immed. released the dog, it came to my daughter, she brought the dog back over to me to make sure I was ok, then proceeded to verbally scold her to what she did. I immed. yelled at my daughter for this, and praised the dog with a "good come"! Was I wrong in doing this, or was my daughter wrong?

From what I understand you are correct. All correction must be done instantly to be effective. I hope you are correct in that it was an accident as if intentional the pup should have been corrected immediately. Why was the pup facing you instead of looking at your daughter?

she was just excitably thrashing around...trying to get away from to get to my daughter! :) It was all done in "play"...so not the dogs fault!

Well the only thing I can see wrong is you yelled at your daughter. Lets face it our kids are more important that any dog. Even if it is the world seiger, in my opinion. I mean, the dog won't be ruined but our kids get hurt too right. Don't get me wrong I try not to get upset at my kids, but it happens. Just my reply to your question, to corrrect or not to correct. The kids love us, and she was trying to help you. Les

Part of it depends on the age of the daughter. Young and doesn't understnad the risks of dogs? Later teens (or more) and should understand? first instinct is to protect your kids, and kids their parents. If it happens again (hopefully not) let your daughter know as she is coming to you that you are really okay and the pup didn't mean it. If your pup was just excited, no scolding. We've been close to that with even the older dogs getting wound up. Drive, drive, and more drive.

Your pup was perfect. She was driven to get to her handler on command -- you cannot ask for more, and if you wanted less, you need another breed. Your daughter was wrong on many counts. Foolish to correct this, foolish to correct it so late and imagine the pup would have a clue. You were also wrong. Yelling at your daughter only stressed the pup more and your assurance that the pup did well was essentially meaningless. Further, if you actually yelled at your daughter, that's probably a problem for another day. PS I could be wrong, but I've raised both high level sport dogs AND a highly competitive elite athlete/student daughter.

You were correct to want to reward the recall and ignore the bite. Careful though, dogs get big reactions for a face bite and that can be a problem. Correct timing would have been for your daughter to praise when the dog came to her. Easy on the kid though.

Crack out the Jack Daniels and the wife-beater. Honestly, all three of you made a mistake. Move on. If you have the typical malinois, it forgot before your daughter even corrected it.

I have seen quite a few mals with less than desired nerves, they are by no means a perfect breed.

Thanks everyone, for your constructive input. One of the reason I dislike posting is that what one is trying to say doesn't really come out well in writing as it does in person! :-( To clarify, my daughter is 17 yrs old, and I didn't really YELL, yell at her, however spoke to her sternly and told her she shouldn't scold the dog because she was only doing what we wanted her to do (be excited to "come" to her owner) As she and the dog were coming to me, I did clarify to her that I was ok, and that it was an accident and my fault. My daughter NEVER told the dog she was bad or anything, however, in a very disappointing voice, said..."look what you did to grandma...you hurt grandma"...NEVER NEVER...LET ME REPEAT NEVER...said anything to her about being a bad dog. And I must agree...she is a typical Mal., and prob. forgot the instant she was released! :) My goal in this post was input on WHAT we did wrong, what we did right, what we could of done better, etc. We don't want to do anything that is going to make us have to take 2 steps back in training.