I brought my new pup home last week and my problem is my two other dogs dont seem to like him, my 8year old weimaraner really grumped at him but in fairness the pup had lunged at her and I think she was scared, now when he goes near her she grumphs so I have been trying to keep them at a distance from each other as I'm now scared she will attack him. I know they have to show whos boss but with her being so big i'm frightened she will hurt him as hes so small, he is 11wks old and a cavalier spaniel. My other dog is a cavalier spaniel as well and is also frightened of him but not being aggresive just scared and is keeping out of his way, but gradually he has been coming over to sniff his toys. I am determined I am keeping the puppy and not giving up because of some teething problems, he is a great wee guy and is just being typical puppy and wanting to play, i'm finding it hard to get anything done as I can't put him down to play while I do things as I'm worried he bothers the big dog and she turns on him.  I have been getting her to lie on sofa out of his way but I see the worried look on her face as he runs towards her, the thing is she is really friendly and loves to play with other dogs when we are out. Does anyone have any good advice on how i can resolve this and help them to get along well.
Thanks
Donna

First of all you need to give the older dogs time away from the pup, so pop the pup in a crate now and then -and always when you cannot supervise. Pups can be very intense -you should see my Papillon puppy (now 7 months old) with one of my Malinois, she literally hurls herself at the Mali and bites her neck etc whilst growling and has done so since she was just 10 weeks old -thankfully this Mali just LOVES this type of attention and they play wonderfully together. My 12 year old Mali however does NOT, and pup very soon learnt this. A normal, well adjusted dog should not try to hurt a pup, they use noise and body language. I see it all the time with my 12 year old, who hasn't wanted to play with anyone for many years. She lives with one Cavalier, 8 Papillons and her own granddaughter, away from the other big dogs. If a pup walks up to her wanting to play, jumps on her back, anything, at first she will simply show her teeth. If that doesn't work, next she will growl. If the pup doesn't even take the hint then, after many times of teeth showing and growling she will eventually have had enough and will lung forward, bark and snap -but the snap is ALWAYS just out of reach, she never, ever makes contact. That has in every single case sorted the puppy out and they have all realised that okay, this big old boring dog isn't worth bothering with, and so she is left alone. It's not natural for an adult dog to attack a puppy. I can understand the worry as I am well aware of problems with size differences but unless the older dog gets to say her piece, the pup will never get the point.

Much the same advice here. My dogs have always loathed new puppies when they first come home, but a combination of getting used to each other and the puppy growing up always sorts it. I still remember Henry disappearing down the bottom of the garden and sulking when Ellie arrived! Give the adults space away from the puppy, but as long as they aren't overdoing it and hurting the puppy, growling at him when he is trying to lunge at them will be the best possible thing, they are teaching him good manners. :-)

When I got my other cavalier the weimaraner told him off as he was bossy but unfortunatly she did make contact and nicked his ear slightly and it bled, dont think she meant it though just was trying to warn him, he took the hint and they love each other now. As you say I just have to work up the courage to let them be. Did say to my partner that I'm going out for a while on Thursday and he can deal with it because im worried what will happen, In my heart I know it is all noise and bluster but I'm a scaredy lol. Dont know if my heart can take much more tension and I know im probably making it worse as she will be sensing im tense and it will be putting her on edge too.

My old boy was far from delighted - he'd been used to living with dogs his age or older - when we got our new pup! We made sure that he had plenty of our attention without the puppy, and would put the pup in her playpen away from him when we couldn't supervise. After a couple of weeks he would allow her to sleep on his head!

Hopefully that will happen in a couple of weeks Jeangenie, I think i will just have to try and not be so nervous and give it time with lots of positive reinforcement, I know i will get lots of good advice on here, so thanks.

Have found the older the dog the longer they seem to take accepting a new puppy but as long as they can get away from the pup they, in my experience, never take matters any further than a warning and a well brought up pup understands the warning and starts to show respect.

We have just got a new pup and she has been with us 5weeks now.

We have two older girls of 5 and 2 and the 2yr old did not take to pup straight away and would show her teeth and walk away and the first week she did snap at pup and caught her on her nose and pup was screaming and I thought she had eaten her with all the noise she made.
She has learn't her lesson and keeps away from her giving her that look of oh yes you are the miserable one.

The strange thing is she allows pup to sleep in bed with her with no problems but she does not like direct eye contact but is alot better now.
I dont allow her to lunge at any of the dogs if I can help it and I always give a loud AHHH if I see she is about too, and that works very well for us.

Agree its hard work for the first few weeks but it gets easier. lol

I think that a lot of dogs don't quite understand what a puppy is.  (Perhaps especially the case if they haven't had their own puppies.) 

They seem to think this is a weird, alien life-form which is somewhat scary and worrying.  It seems to take a few weeks before they realise it is actually another dog!

Always keep them separated when you're not there to supervise, and I think it can help to hold the puppy, so the dog can sniff it in your arms and so you can protect it, if the dog does behave aggressively to it. 

If you are holding the pup, and you have a bold puppy which wants to play, you can also allow the pup to mouth/playbite just near the adult, but the instant you see the adult dog not liking this or being afraid, immediately remove pup.  With a few sessions of this a day, the older dog soon starts to play back and everything has then been ok for us.  (It's actually a bit like a BAT set-up, except you're removing the scary dog rather than the dog which is afraid.)

>I think it can help to hold the puppy, so the dog can sniff it in your arms and so you can protect it, if the dog does behave aggressively to it. 

Would it not be safer to hold the pup on the floor so that the adult can sniff it, and pup can instinctively roll over submissively? Usually dogs being picked up gives them an elevated (literally!) sense of their status, and the older dog can feel justified jealousy at this preferential treatment to the new upstart, and is also likely to jumpup to reach it which can be scary to the pup.

Think we all have our own tried and tested methods and perhaps what works with one breed would not work with another.

My method is to sit in the garden with the pup on my lap, the others are let out and rush to greet me, I make a fuss of them still with the pup on my lap, having greeted me they will sniff at the pup and I just wait till they have all lost interest and then put the pup on the ground, some will come over to look, some will go back inside and others ignore but none have ever been aggressive.

Invest in baby gates and always give your older dogs some safe places, that are theirs alone, to which they can retreat whenever they like.  They need to have places/rooms where they can relax knowing they can't be harassed or, worse still, surprised.  It's a good idea to keep a puppy on a wipe clean floor for a while (kitchen?) so the older dogs can be in your other rooms.

A lot of older dogs find puppies alarming.  My oldest dog had already been through these stages with a younger puppy so he was fine when the 3rd one came along but my middle dog was horrified.  However once the puppy was around 12 weeks old he gradually became more accepting and even started to initiate some interaction.

Time and space will generally achieve results

I agree with the baby gates...we have them all over the house for the big girls to have peace in their own space.

Usually dogs being picked up gives them an elevated (literally!) sense of their status, and the older dog can feel justified jealousy at this preferential treatment to the new upstart, and is also likely to jumpup to reach it which can be scary to the pup.

Fully agree.

>My dogs have always loathed new puppies when they first come home,

When I brought home my second Bearded Collie, I think my then 2 year old Beardie lived behind the settee for two weeks!

>When I brought home my second Bearded Collie, I think my then 2 year old Beardie lived behind the settee for two weeks!

Henry disappeared into the garden, refused to come back when called, and ignored me for about 3 days! Of course he soon changed his mind about how nice the puppy was when she started growing up... ;-)

Reading this really makes me appreciate how good my Lola is.  I brought Roxy home at 7 weeks and she was there waiting for her to come out of her crate, took her into the garden and basically never left her side for about 3 weeks! 

Get a crate - pup in crate, big dogs out. Then reverse, big dogs crated, pup running around.
If you believe there is going to be a problem there WILL be a problem - chill!
Allow your dogs to be miffed that a youngster has invaded their space.
Don't forget, the world does not revolve around the youngster ... the other dogs need your time too.
Read this http://flyingdogpress.com/content/view/42/97/ - should come as standard issue when puppies are collected :-)

Sorry, I did mean hold the pup at floor level...  It's hard to explain, but I put my hand under the pup, so my palm is on its ribcage underneath and fingers around front legs (not restrictively).

I allow the pup to initiate and control things as much as possible and my hand is only there to ensure I can keep pup back from adult dog, if the adult dog looks uneasy.  It's a bit like 'managed' play.

Few sessions like this, every day, till the adult dog begins to play back a bit, and then I know it will soon be alright.

Thanks for all your great advice, glad to say that things are much better, older dog is now more accepting of pup, though I am still constantly supervising she has been a lot happier around him, I have been giving her lots of praise for her positive behaviour and fingers crossed it seems to be working. It was like a switch in her head going on as the other day she was very keen to play with him and I sat on floor with them whole time while they played and only stepped in when pup was getting a bit boisterous with his little teeth, so hopefully they will end up being lifelong buddies.

My older boy was very laid back when the new puppy came a few days ago. But yesterday the puppy (who is very lively) jumped at the older dog and frightened him. The older dog flinched and turned his head away but did not growl. Tonight the older dog was in his own bed, I put the puppy down on the floor. He landed a bit near the older dog's bed and the older dog gave a small growl. I think the older dog must have thought the puppy was going to jump on top of him. They were sniffing each other on the first day.

You must allow older dogs an escape root and peace in their own beds or you could have a problem on yours hands.

Beachview there is a lot of good advice in this thread so have a look through and re post if you need more help.  You're more likely to get responses to new posts as many of us have already replied to this one and won't realise there are new questions on the end..

A few points come to mind though when I read your latest post:  get baby gates and give your older dog safe places where he can relax knowing the pup cannot surprise him.  Move his bed if needs be.  It's not fair on your older dog to allow the pup free rein.  Pups take a while to learn the rules and you need to help him learn otherwise your older dog may well feel pushed to react.  Some dogs would do this stage brilliantly but not all of them and older males can very often find pups a nuisance :)

Make sure to spend time with each dog separately

Be cautious about picking up the puppy and just putting him down nr your your other dog.  If you have a worried dog then puppies in the air are 'one step removed from the devil' and your older dog might well over react when the pup touches ground

You have some great advice here that I can't add to. Just wanted to reassure you as my last pup was thoroughly HATED by all of our other 5 for about 2 weeks. The old boy was like Cujo it was horrendous! But using many of the techniques given here, they all get along really well now. Light at the end of the tunnel and all that :)

Through my work I have had lots of puppy's in my house over the years. when I bring the new pup into the home i always hold the new pup and allow the others to sniff all over till they have had enough. then 'I protect' my other dogs, as in i allow them an escape to get away from the pup if needed. i am very lucky that all my dogs have good temprements and i trust them 100%. however for the first tow or three weeks they are very wary of the new pups. the new pup must learn to respect the older dogs. i have found that the only way my own dogs will tell the pups off is if they are eating a bone and the pups goes towards them....the older dog will give a warning growl, i find this is enough for the new pups, they read the dog well and will draw back. but i never leave new pups with the older dogs alone for a while. it can be pretty scary for an older dog when this wee pup is jumping on them ect, so as i said i protect my older dogs until the new pup learns the respect.

Thanks for the advice and reassurance. They've been okay today

Thanks for the advice and reassurance. They've been okay today