Puppy lunged at 5 year old's face... Help!

Here's the story. My brother is an animal loving marine biologist. His Podenco had puppies and he offered me and a friend one each. However It wasn't a clean go round to his house, pick it up and take it home… I live in Yorkshire, UK and he lives in Cape Verde in Africa.

So last week he flew from Cape Verde to Italy with the two pups (6 months old with all the correct jabs, vaccinations and tests). And me and the friend set off from the UK to meet my brother off the flight in Italy. The car journey to italy took 24hrs each way. After the mammoth mission was complete we had a day of relaxing together in the UK and then went our separate ways.

So in total the puppies had an 8hr flight and a 24hr drive under their belts. Coupled with the fact that they had been separated from their sisters, mother and previous owner all in a few days.

I live with my partner and her 5 year old daughter. For the first day the dog stuck to me as she didn’t know the other two and was very timid. After that she warmed to my partner but still not to her daughter. She would run away from the child every time she tried to stroke her or give her any attention. We made sure she acted calm, quiet and moved slowly when interacting with the dog. Last night as the dog was sat on my lap my girlfriend’s daughter came over to stroke her and she lunged at her, she didn’t seem to want to bite her but just scare her off. Although her teeth scraped her face… Understandably the poor girl was distraught… We all were.

We don’t know what went wrong or what to do. I feel guilty that I didn’t prepare this dog for my partners daughter. Or visa versa. Why did she do it? It cannot happen again. Should it be zero tolerance when dogs for people. Should I keep her, knowing the stressful week she’s had? Did we rush the dog into it. If so how can I make sure that they bond? Too many questions to list! She is an unbelievably lovely and affectionate dog it totally took us all by surprise.

If you’ve managed to read all of this and have any advice, warnings, tricks, ideas that would be massively appreciated.

Many thanks,

The dog is a puppy, they don't know the rules until you teach them. Puppies use their teeth until taught not to, it's how they interact with each other. You need to figure out what you want, your priorities. Keep the dog off your lap unless invited, train it to be gentle around your daughter, teach bite inhibition. Teach the pup some commands, sit, leave, gentle etc. teach your daughter to be calm around the pup and to not go in with her face first. Tbh I could write an essay but the fact your asking if you should keep her I think I'll be wasting my time.

Seek out a good behaviourist sooner rather than later. But in the mean time keep pup on floor and child on a chair out of harms reach. I feel for the puppy with such an experience of changing location but I suppose humans come first.

There are too many things gone wrong here to list them in a post but I feel that this poor creature must have been at the end of it's tether when it snapped at the child. At 6 months the podenco is a baby which has suffered stress from separation, travel etc, and should have been given at least a week (bare minimum) to settle into it's new home and introductions to children should have been conducted after this period had elapsed. First of all at a distance and then contact entirely on the puppy's terms for when it was ready the pup would have come over to the child and said hello by way of gentle sniffing and tail wagging. Pup must be conditioned to the child and very much vice versa. Many dogs of the podenco type don't actually like being patted on the head or fussed and after giving the dog time to settle, when the dog has come to the person of it's own volition a gentle stroking down the shoulder would be a better form of physical contact.
I must admit to being slightly concerned about the "should I keep her" comment. This pup has done no wrong. I would suggest you get in touch with the breed rescue society to seek advice or if necessary find a new home.

They say let a sleeping dog lie keep training