New rescue dog bites kid on the face
We just rescued a 1yo australian shepherd who lived outdoors with his brother all his life so far, he has been with us for a week or so and has been nothing but amazing - perfect off leash, no chasing of wildlife, great in public, sweet and snuggly. He is a bit skittish at times but gets used to things fairly quickly. Over the past 2 days we had a few incidents involving the child that seem like resource guarding- one time the dog had a high value chew and the child sat down next to it, the dog snapped. We followed the incident by walking over a few times and giving the dog high value food rewards to make a positive association with humans coming over and the dog was fine . The second incident was when there was a grocery bag on the floor and the child approached, the dog barked and nipped. The freshest incident was today, dog was on couch with all of us, child walked over to pet and the dog nipped at her face and left a mark. It scared us a lot. The dog was visibly upset and acting sorry, but the behavior seemed to come out of nowhere. Right after the dog was sitting next to me again and the child approached, the dog made a growl face. The child is 10 and educated in warning signs, we have been training together since day 1, the child is teaching the dog treats, goes on walks with us, is feeding the dog. Just now as I'm writing this post the dog was laying in the doorway to the bathroom and the kid tried coming over, the dog looked up with a big side eye and growled as the child approached.
What is the course of action? Is there any point in correcting the behavior? Why is it only directed towards the child? I don't see why the dog would treat the child any different than us adults, it's usually licking her face, playful etc.