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My wife and I have an 11 week old French Bulldog named Hamlet. We've only had him a few days, but have invested a lot of time and energy and emotion into finding, waiting for him etc. He really is an adorable dog and 90% of the time very affectionate.
However, today, I was playing with him as usual. He instantiates play by posturing and sometimes barking. Then jumping back and forth and mildly wrestling around. This time, at some point during play, something seemed to snap and he started growling in a non play-like way and whipping around more fiercely. I immediately told him no and stopped the play. But, ever since that moment, he has started to growl at the slightest inconvenience to him. Other corrections, touching the wrong way, etc result in growling.
In response to that behavior, my wife and I both have given a stronger verbal response, yelling no and making noises to startle him and immediately putting him in an extra bathroom for a 5 minute time-out. We've had to do this 3-4 times today and it appears to be working well. He is now much more responsive to "no" and accepts handling that had caused a growl with no growl.
I am confident that we can correct this dominant behavior between my wife and I and the dog. The problem is that we are also expecting a baby in 5 months. I am concerned that he is simply an exceptionally dominant typed individual (experts on the breed have said this is highly unusual, especially at 11 weeks). I feel that, my wife and I may be able to establish ourselves as the Alpha(s) but that we will still have a dominance oriented dog that may decide he needs to assert himself on the new baby.
We are really torn on what to do about him. We are attached but do have the option of returning him to the breeder. Is it likely that this behavior at such an age indicates that he will always have special training needs that most dogs dont? Should we cut our losses and send him back? Any advice on what we should do or can expect from him would be greatly appreciated.
However, today, I was playing with him as usual. He instantiates play by posturing and sometimes barking. Then jumping back and forth and mildly wrestling around. This time, at some point during play, something seemed to snap and he started growling in a non play-like way and whipping around more fiercely. I immediately told him no and stopped the play. But, ever since that moment, he has started to growl at the slightest inconvenience to him. Other corrections, touching the wrong way, etc result in growling.
In response to that behavior, my wife and I both have given a stronger verbal response, yelling no and making noises to startle him and immediately putting him in an extra bathroom for a 5 minute time-out. We've had to do this 3-4 times today and it appears to be working well. He is now much more responsive to "no" and accepts handling that had caused a growl with no growl.
I am confident that we can correct this dominant behavior between my wife and I and the dog. The problem is that we are also expecting a baby in 5 months. I am concerned that he is simply an exceptionally dominant typed individual (experts on the breed have said this is highly unusual, especially at 11 weeks). I feel that, my wife and I may be able to establish ourselves as the Alpha(s) but that we will still have a dominance oriented dog that may decide he needs to assert himself on the new baby.
We are really torn on what to do about him. We are attached but do have the option of returning him to the breeder. Is it likely that this behavior at such an age indicates that he will always have special training needs that most dogs dont? Should we cut our losses and send him back? Any advice on what we should do or can expect from him would be greatly appreciated.