In all honesty I'm not surprised Gracie growled at the child, she had already made it clear that she wasn't entirely happy by trying to hide and then she is suddenly grabbed from behind and pulled backwards, it would give any dog a shock. As it is she showed that she has good self control by just growling a warning and not actually snapping or trying to bite. I don't think stopping giving her treats will make a difference as she growled because she was grabbed and pulled. It is vital that children are taught how to respect dogs and not to pull at or grab them, dogs are not people and they are not little angels in fur coats and it isn't fair to expect them to put up with this kind of thing without reacting
Totally agree Nicola.
I really wouldn't worry, this was the childs fault and I too am not surprised Gracie reacted how she did.
I had a similar incident with my niece when Barney was 4 months old. The link below is my panic ridden post after the incident as I was convinced (thanks to my family constantly saying how nasty gold cockers were
) that he was going to be nasty. Well he's 14 months old and he's not in the slightest bit nasty. I have to say that he doesn't like my niece now and doesn't want her near him, which I understand totally and I don't put him in that position. He doesn't bother very much with very young children now but 5 up and he adores them. Problem with my family is that they believe every dog should be like Max, my Golden Retriever, who puts up with everything the kids do to him and he in return he adores them. But the kids need to be taught that not every dog will accept being crawled over or having fingers shoved up their nose.
http://www.cockersonline.co.uk/discuss/index.php?topic=19715.msg243791#msg243791As long as you supervise your baby as she grows up with Gracie I'm sure she'll be fine. As Ali said Gracie, like Barney, doesn't want to be pulled, grabbed etc but now you know that you can supervise accordingly.
After the ongoing problems with Barney and my niece I was chatting to my vet about it. She told me about a DVD that she'd heard about called The Blue Dog that is aimed at young children about treating dogs with respect and what they should and shouldn't do. It wasn't widely available at the time and I couldn't track it down, but last week I saw it next to the tills in PAH. I'd recommend it to anyone who has young children who mix with dogs. I however can't pass it onto my brother to show his children as they believe, quite rightly, that I blame my niece for what happened and that I am wrong to do so and has been the subject of heated exchanges. So giving them the dvd would probably start WW3.