a young male dog that has had no boundaries in his life,
is very good with other dogs, and adults the problem is
children he becomes nasty around children when out walking
we do not know why this is so, the people who gave him up
never said anything about him being nasty with kids,
he is neutered but no boundaries aloud to do what he
wanted to when he wanted to , do you think he will always be
like this or is their a chance he can be turned around,
or do you think he just needs to go to a home without any chance
of comming into contact with children, anyone got a dog or had
a dog like this and been able to help them

Get him assessed by a behaviourist as you can't take any chances as you cannot guarantee that the dog will never meet a child.

>becomes nasty around children

Can you define this, as in what behaviour/ body language is displayed?
Because the answer to that will help others to answer this:

>anyone got a dog or had a dog like this and been able to help them?

I would say that in an instance like this (owners having to seek advice via third party or Internet), and particularly if that 'nastiness' manifests in behaviour likely to cause injury then I'm firmly with Lucy on this one. Don't dilly dally or rely on blind Internet diagnosis get a professional pair of eyes on the dog for everyone's sake and call in an APDT trainer or an APBC behaviourist
  HTH?

Be VERY careful with getting involved here.  I was involved in a rescue once and the dog was 'unpredictable' with kids.  No warning, would just bite if the kid pushed her boundaries, like walking past her while sleeping or sat too close to the owner.  I said no to rescue as the dog was just an accident waiting to happen but she was taken on by another and apparently placed in a home with no kids.  Turned out that the man of the house had a 12yr old daughter that visited every other weekend and within 4 months, that dog was PTS for biting the daughter.
Totally avoidable and made me so angry.
Your story might be totally different.

have not taken the dog on yet
he was out for a walk today with is foster mum and saw children
from about 50 yds away
the children where just walking with their parents
the dog went manic , he was wailing and really upset
that there was children around , he was transfixed on the children
and she had to pick him up and walk in the other direction
with him and as soon as the children where out of his
view fine ,
she has got a behaviourist comming monday to see him
the vet suggested this person and she said that as it was
an emergency she would be there monday early morning
so will wait and see what  the behaviourist has to say
i have had some real nasty dogs in the past but non that
have every been this scared of children so i have held off
saying yes till i talk with the behaviourist after she has been to
the foster home and seen him and assesed him

One does wonder what sort of treatment has been inflicted on this dog by someone's children, to turn the behaviour round it may require knowledge of what it has suffered and it may never be trustworthy, a great deal of though is needed because if the chances of correcting this learned behaviour are not good the best thing may be to call it a day now and not risk the dog leading a stressed life that may well end with a innocent child being bitten or worse.

just found out more he tried to run when first spotted children and as he could not run he went into fight mode
the couple had a twins when he was only 6 months old and he has just turned 12 months now things are starting to fall into place now in my mind at least

the couple had a twins when he was only 6 months old and he has just turned 12 months now

That may put a more hopeful spin on matters assuming that the adults have inflicted goodness knows what sort of treatment on the puppy when he found himself in the presents of children. Very sad but may be recoverable if he is in the right hands but it will take care and understanding.

> he was wailing and really upset
> that there was children around , he was transfixed on the children
>

MY Safi can be like this when she sees a dog when we are lead walking, yet at shows with thousands of dogs there is no reaction, as she can meet and greet.

She isn't being nasty she is frustrated as she wants to say hello, and I won't allow her to as I am walking 6 dogs on leads which is too much for the average other dog to cope with.

So are you sure this is a negative reaction to children.  Many dogs find youngsters more exciting than adults.  Of course some perceive them as prey, if they have not been socialised.

On a loose lead is the dog trying to get away from the children or get to them????

> the couple had a twins when he was only 6 months old and he has just turned 12 months now

That doesn't really make sense as regards any bad association due to children's behaviour, as 6 month old babies would not be old enough to be mobile enough around the dog.  Though of course the owners actions may have caused a negative/fear association around babies.

AT 12 months I would expect any untrained unsocialised youngster to be reactive around kids.

This is very sad,my own two rescue dogs do not like children,we dont have any so thats ok, but I would never put them up against any toddlers,not because they will lunge at them or anything they just shake with fear ,do all they can to get away,but if they got trapped I am sure they would lash out.
Sadly my boy many years ago bit my friends son,but only because this little boy hit him over the nose with a ceramic clock( in the 5 seconds we weren't looking) it took about 10 minutes for this little boy to get over it as thank god it was more of a scratch,but I don't think dawson dog ever got over it.
since then we have been very careful,and they have got better and learned to trust us thats it ok,but we can never trust them.I just dont ever put them in a situation with kids running about.

Im am not sure this ever goes away,it may be that it has to be worked around,we managed to do this as ours weren't actively aggressive to children on sight.
good luck with this,ash.

Personally I think a dog showing these signals around children can never truly be  trusted.Can anyone hand on heart say that they can always avoid meeting children.
As much as I love dogs our children and their safety must always come first and sometimes misguided people take on such dogs and believe that they can turn them around.
Please think long and hard before taking on or rehoming such a dog,sometimes the kindest thing to do is put the dog to sleep

I was suggesting that as the dog was only 6 months when the children were born that the parents reaction to the situation of having tiny babies and a boisterous puppy that the adults may well have over reacted and made the pup scared of being near children or even punished him for going anywhere near a child.

I  had a bitch that didn't like children.  She was actively terrified if there were any around and would go straight into flight mode(which was always allowed).  She never had any adverse treatment around or from children in her entire life.  I knew her breeder very well so knew she hadn't met children before we collected her and then after that it was always supervised socialisation(We never had kids at the time).
When we(OH & I) had our family, she was fantastic with our kids but still terrified of any other kids.  Such a strange re-action.  But we found out later in her life that it wasn't the kids in general she didn't like, it was a size thing with her.  She was scared of miniture! She couldn't understand the small adults or the higher pitched voices.

after a night of sleeping on it we have both decided we cannot take this little dog on, as we do agility and he will come into contact with children of all ages.
we both feel so guilty of not being able to help but he will have a permenant home as his breeder is going to take him back it still does not make us feel any better about not being able to help him though.

with regards to not understanding why 6 month old children would be a problem the problem is they are noisy, take a lot of looking after especially twins, they are messy, they may not move alot, but he could of been noise sensitive, he was only 6 months old when they where born, so his world would of been turned upside down where he was center of attention first he would of been now pushed out as they where new parents with twins all the different smells and noises have pushed him over the edge and he could not flight due to being in the same house as them, many of us have had children with our dogs around and have introduced them to the babies maybe the couple could not cope with a bouncy young puppy and pushed him out the way or locked him behind a baby gate or in a cage we will never know the full story of what happened to this little man

What I meant was he would not have been actively subjected to physical negatives from the babies. 

I can perfectly understand the upheaval and difficulties babies and puppies combined might create.

the owners would have known a baby was on the way, in fact probably known it was twins when he was born, let alone when they collected him.

I have puppy owners who have had a pup when the wife just discovered she was pregnant (it did worry me but they had been waiting for pup around a year so not a rush decision), and also one couple had twins when Inka's brother was only just over a year old (but very dog savvy family).

Both families have found the dogs (interestingly both males) marvellous around the children, but obviously babies are hard work, and a puppy may just be too much on top.  I did spend some time expecting the 'I can't cope, can you have him back' phone call.  In fac t the one family have just had their second child, with the dog only 2 1/2.

Breed does make a difference as well as individuals.  I chose this breed (pretty bomb proof and adaptable) when I myself had very young children, rather than have another puppy of the more sensitive herding breed I started with.

What I am saying though is with this dog the OP mentions being really only a puppy at 12 months it is not too late to socialise it properly and safely to children, as it does appear to be fear.  We all know that many dogs  view children positively due to the association with dropped food ;)  Some breeds like my own seem to have a natural affinity even without being around children at all.

OP mentions little dog, and of course the small breeds may have more issues generally with socialisation with kids, bigger dogs etc, as they are more vulnerable.

> One does wonder what sort of treatment has been inflicted on this dog by someone's children

Not necessarily anything - all it takes is for him to have been kept away.  My Soli was like this with children, she'd never had a bad experience with any, she'd just never been socialised with them.  When she first arrived I have no doubt she would have bitten them and she did lunge at a few - one very close who was being a complete idiot and trying to wind her up.  He got quite the earful from me, and she was well respected from then on by the locals, and did over time learn to love kids as I worked on her issues.  She was a firm favourite with the schoolkids round my way in the end :-)  She was 5 when she arrived so at only 12 months I would think certainly something can be done, but it must be done the right way.

Even in the same house as babies, if he was already unsocialised to children then their presence would likely have upset him even more and being almost constantly in that presence could easily have made him as reactive as he is.

Agree with most of the others, behaviourist is needed and one that is fully qualified too.

We have got a dog that sounds similar - very reactive to anything outside the home behaves like a devil dog
lunging etc on lead and barking etc. He was returned to us as his breeder when his previous owners decided
he had to go (after an alledged biting incident)

We have had a fully qualified behaviourist come out to visit and assess turns out we are very very lucky.
He is just a very frustrated dog (he is neutered).
It's going to take a while but we hope that with the behaviourists help we are going to be able to make a difference
and be able to get him acting less of the devil dog that he currently portrays outside the home and also to get
him greeting different people inside our home (behind dog gates) until he feels comfortable with 'strangers'.

This dog may be able to be helped but only with the guidance of a fully qualified behaviourist and committed owners
that will put in the work needed to help this youngster.