My mother in law has a cavaliver king charles spaniel called Charlie. When my partner used to live with his mum he was very close to Charlie, he used to take him walks etc. We have since moved into a house of our own and bought another cavalier king charles spaniel called Toby. Now when Toby and ourselves go round my mother in laws Charlie gets quite agressive towards him, e.g he never shuts up growling if Toby only looks at him. He will turn his back as he can't stand looking at him. Toby is still very young (7 months) and just wants to play with Charlie. My partner and I feel that it could be something to do with Charlie's dominence as he always has to come up on the sofa and also that another dog has come on the scene and he feels pushed out. My mother in law also tells him off when Charlie is growling and somethings shuts him up in the kitchen on his own which I don't think helps. Any advice on what we can do for Charlie to like Toby?

He's protecting his territory against the intruder, there is no way to know why dogs take a dislike to another but as we do it then we should not be too suprised if dogs do.
Providing your mothers dog is ok with other dogs it is just one of those things, they may get on better if they met outside your Mothers home, try walking them together. Ja:)kie

It's a real pain when dogs take a dislike to one another - seemingly for no apparent reason. My dobe met my sister's Siberian Husky, Dante, about six months ago. They got on ok for the first few visits, then the third time they just circled one another for about an hour then had a huge rip roaring fight for no real reason and Dante had to have stitches (on his tecticle!) to repair the damage. We've given up on these two altogether and Hugo has to be left at home on visits now - it's useless even to try when it's this bad.

There are so many things to think of if you are depserate for them to tolerate each other, I've tried sticking them in a confined space together (if they're not fighters) for a few hours and completely ignoring them. They seem to get bored of growling and sometimes end up cuddling up and going to sleep. Bearing in mind that it's Charlie's house you could try greeting the dominant dog first, allowing him to be fed first, have his treats first, cuddles on the sofa whilst other dog is on the floor and generally pandering to their desperate need to be top dog. Or when I get bored of all this, whoever is the trouble maker gets a hearty slap, a shouted 'NO!" and gets chucked out in the rain for an hour!

Hope some of this helps.

Lady G