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I have a dog and we live in a place where there are lots of children. Most of these children will go to the gate of people who have dogs and start throwing stones at the gate just to hear the dog bark. Most times, I'll open the gate to send them away and my dog usually sees them.

One day, as we were walking home (without a leash on him), he saw one of those children that used to throw stones at our gates. Immediately he pursued the child and knocked him down. I called him back and told him to go home and apologized to the boy.

He did the same thing another day and has almost done it for 4 of those children now. Now when we go out, I have to put him on a leash.

Although this has reduced the rate at which our gates get stoned, I am afraid he might injure one of those children when I let him go out alone.

How can I stop this behavior or make him forget what those children have done?

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    You cannot let him off leash ever, the risk is too great, you can't force him to forget.. he is too old to go through a rigorous retrain and it's not fair on him. :( poor dog – user6796 Oct 13 '13 at 12:44
  • @Skippy You cannot let him off leash ever. Thats very difficult. my dog is quite used to being off a leash whenever we go out – user34 Oct 13 '13 at 12:46
  • It is your choice, but living here, if a dog goes for children, if he bites one, there can be a court order made to have him euthanized, I understand your dog is small, but he can still do damage if he bites a child.. it is your judgement call, not mine to make :) – user6796 Oct 13 '13 at 12:52
  • @Skippy I'll try my best maybe even stop taking him out but the dog has never bitten any body – user34 Oct 13 '13 at 12:55
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    :( can you take him out in the car to an area he can run around in? Play fetch with him in the garden ? poor little dog, he sounds like a good boy, give him lots of pats, to make up for every stone. Please don't be dejected, every problem has a solution.. it's just a shock you're hearing, you need time – user6796 Oct 13 '13 at 12:58
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This is a normal reaction from a dog. My sister's dog behaves similarly when he sees the children who shout at our gate and want to play with him, but when they see our dog they run in random directions and excite our dog. It never harmed any children, but there is a risk of the children getting injured. Some neighbors even started talking about it, and blamed us for this noisy behavior.

The solution we concluded is that we stopped reacting to the children's shouts and bell ringing and stopped our dog from meeting them. We changed the time of our dog's evening walk to make sure he didn't see those children. After a few weeks, the children stopped coming to our house and this trouble ended.

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