I have recently added a little cocker spaniel pup to my gang. She's my first little girl so I'm delighted!! My question is this. My own cocker male has always been the dominant one in my dogs and I have partly played a part in this as he is the smallest by a mile and I'd rather the big dogs respected him as the leader after me. Now obviously pups will be pups and when the pup is interacting with the dogs it is strictly supervised by me and I'm never more than 5 feet from her. The big dogs are perfect around her. So gentle and she hops on them and they roll over. Honestly!! The cocker ignores her. Now this is my question. Twice now she has jumped at him for play which he corrects her for. But the level at which he does it is too severe. She submits to him immediately but he really does get cross. He will never do it unless she is in his face etc so its not like he seeks to start anything. I stop him immediately but how do I get him to understand to calm his reaction? I dont want to end up with her being afraid of him and him hating her from me giving out to him!!

> I stop him immediately but how do I get him to understand to calm his reaction?

If he is not drawing blood and he's simply making a big, noisy, display of telling pup off, then there is no need to correct him.

> I dont want to end up with her being afraid of him and him hating her from me giving out to him!!

If pup was worried about the telling off, she wouldn't be repeating the behaviour that got her the tellling of in the first place :) The more you interfere with them, the harder it will be for pup to learn the boundries.

I made the mistake of interfereing when I brought my pup home. I already had an elderly male dog and as soon as he told pup off, I jumped in to 'peace make'. All that ended up doing was to stop the adult dog teaching the pup his boundries and basically gave the pup a free-reign to pester the adult dog. As soon as I stepped back and allowed the adult dog to tell pup off (it looked and sounded awful, with 'nasty' growls and lots of snapping that never actualy made contact with pup - it was all show), pup learnt the boundries of the adult dog.

People can't teach doggy-manners like a dog can :)

Well he doesn't draw blood but he does make contact and a lot of noise. Once I put my hand on his back and tell him to stop he will immediately. I tell him no and he strops off very proud of his efforts! He was the same with my other 2 dogs now that I think of it but I suppose it didn't bother me so much as they were almost his size as pups! He is only 4 himself so not quite ready for a pension yet. Both times have occured inside when the pup has been jumping on my german shepherd and has gotten carried away in the fun. Actually the gsd has turned into a wonderful nanny and he is simply smitten. Its funny really as he is a brat with dogs he doesn't know but with Lucy, right from the word go, not a bit of bother. His version of a correction is to nudge her away and hop on the couch. Thats usually after an hour of fun. The cocker could learn alot from my 2 year old supposedly restricted breed!!

Hiya,

Cockers can tend to be rather dramatic in their telling off, is he a working cocker, their patience threshold is not as a rule the highest.  Personally for me if he's making contact then he's taking things to far as it's easy ofr an accident when they are being over dramatic and if the pup moves quickly then she could be marked.

If pup was worried about the telling off, she wouldn't be repeating the behaviour that got her the tellling of in the first place 

Maybe, maybe not, pups are impulsive and act a such without relly thinking things through, and there is always the possibbility that repeated episodes of this could ruin her confidence - I've seen it lots of times.  Cockers can be very good a becoming a bit bullyish and that really isn't a pattern that you want to develop.  Yes another dog telling a pup off for being in their face is fine but there are limits and making contract for me is over that limit - your cocker needs to learn some self control as well as the pup.  It also depends on the age of the pup and what phase they are going through devlopmentally, an overreaction from another dog at a fear impact stage could have a much bigger effect!

What I would do, rather than thinking of correcting him, is try and avoid the pup encroaching too much in his space for the time being, maybe with the use of a house line, so that if you can see your cocker is getting close to reacting or she is taking things too far then you can ask her to 'leave' or tell her 'enough' and then encourage her away with the use of the line and then rewardher for coming away from you.  I think to a big extent it is our responsibility to teach our dogs what we want from them rather than leave it to our other dogs and also your cocker opbviously isn't comfortable with that close contact yet so best to let them get to know each other slowly.

I would also very carefully build up positive association with the pup for the cocker, so maybe pop your cocker in a seperate room to your other two and then bring in the pup into the same room as the cocker and fed them both high value rewards (if needs be tiw the pup up to something so they both have enough space), something like roast chicken, then when you stop feeding them take the pup out.  Gradually get them nearer each other, this way the cocker caan build up a really positive association with the pup.  This is just one example there are lots of way of building positive associations for them but it does need to be specific.

If the cocker does get to the point of realkly over reacting to the pup, which I would try and manage so it doesn't happen for the time being then I would pop him out the room, quietly and immediately and give him a few minutes to calm down.

Puppies usually have something called puppy lisence for a reason - they need time to find their feet and build up confidence, yopur other dogs will start being firmer in their tellings off when he gets a bit older but at the moment the pups experiences withother dogs for the main should be positive ones.  Including meeting other dogs than you own :-)  Hope that makes sense.

You really don't want to interfere too much. It is normal behaviour for a pup to really annoy the older dogs ;-) The fact that you have a male that is the older dog will make it worse. Male dogs don't normally do puppies :-) In fact, mine is terrified of them So long as things don't become too hairy scarey then I would leave well alone. You may inadvertently make him sly, in that he will attack the pup when you aren't there. If you allow him to put her in her place, within reason, things should soon settle down. It might take a few weeks before the message sinks in though. Puppies can be a bit dense :-D You will soon notice that she will rule the roost eventually though. Bitches tend to become the boss in the end. :-p

> I have partly played a part in this as he is the smallest by a mile and I'd rather the big dogs respected him as the leader after me.

You would be suprised at how little you have actually affected this outcome.
Their pack pecking order is sorted out amongst themselves, as it will with this newcomer, who incidently,could probably end up the boss.
It has always been a female in my doggy houshold ( and my human household come to think of it :-) )

[url=]It has always been a female in my doggy houshold ( and my human household come to think of it  ) [/url]

Yep , its a female thing they always end up the boss, (human or canine) 

> You really don't want to interfere too much

I agreed completely, I never interfere when my dogs are playing or disciplining a pup. From the moment I bring a new pup into the house they are never separated from the other dogs apart from when I'm not there (and that's mainly for house training purposes, when they are put in the kitchen). I've never believed in interfering, or giving other dogs 'time out', they've always sorted it out themselves. I've always had at least 4 dogs at a time, that makes over 20 pups that have had to learn the rules from the older dogs, and for the most part (Mr Beastly excepted) they've all turned out to be brilliant dogs with perfect doggy manners :-)

What I would do, rather than thinking of correcting him, is try and avoid the pup encroaching too much in his space for the time being, maybe with the use of a house line, so that if you can see your cocker is getting close to reacting or she is taking things too far then you can ask her to 'leave' or tell her 'enough' and then encourage her away with the use of the line and then rewardher for coming away from you.  I think to a big extent it is our responsibility to teach our dogs what we want from them rather than leave it to our other dogs and also your cocker opbviously isn't comfortable with that close contact yet so best to let them get to know each other slowly.

Was in a bit of a hurry when wrote the above and just wanted to clarify that I meant if the pup is taking things to far or getting to close to the cocker and you can see the cocker is uncomfortable then use the line to encourage her away and reward her for coming to you :-)

If it's just noise it's ok, but if he is making contact, I agree that's a little too harsh on his part. Like others have said, try to distract her if you can see she's leading up to doing something that will make him react. Also although you do want to let him correct her to some extent, I think just casually saying 'alright now that's enough' rather than strongly correcting the older dog, and then distracting the puppy is ok. That way you're sort of telling the older one that correcting is ok but not to do too much of it.