My first two yorkie mixes were brothers from different litters. I got them from the same person. The first one, Max, I got for my daughter during her junior year in high school. He was such a delight that my husband got me his younger brother, from a different litter, shortly before our daughter started commuting to college. His name was Mo (Elmo). Although my daughter took Max when she moved into a house with other roommates, she later ended up sending Max back to live with us when she found her dream apartment...which wouldn't allow dogs.
When our first grandsons were born, we had both Max and Mo with us. Unfortunately, Max had not had the level of socialization with children, nor the level of training, that I would have preferred. Although he was happy with us, and fit back into the family, we could not trust him with the toddlers. He never nipped or was aggressive with them, but would let out a low growl if they came too close. It was obvious that they made him nervous with their quick movements. Mo ran straight to them when they were at the house, and reveled in rolling around the floor with them. We always supervised every minute spent with our dogs, and the boys learned "pet pet" (gently patting them) from their earliest time...with us holding their little hands and praising them for being gentle.
Although Max never learned to truly enjoy the grandkids, he would just ignore them. We gave Mo a red collar and Max a blue collar. We could tell them apart, but we wanted to make sure that the children knew who was who. All of our grandkids learned to play with the doggy with the red collar, (and leave "grumpy old Max" alone) and things worked out well. |