Hi Everyone,
I'm new here but was hoping someone could give me some advice.

I have three golden retrievers.  One is 2 years old, one is a year and a half and one is 3 months old that I got two weeks ago.

Our new guys name is Seamus (Shamus) and he is beautiful but crazy.  He seems very aggressive towards both my other goldens
and barks and growls at them every waking minute.  He tries to take things away from them.  He can get away with if from my
oldest but my middle guy fights back a bit.  This upsets the puppy which then causes him to bark and bark and bark until he
wins.

He jumps on their backs and bites their back legs.  I'm not so worried about my middle guy but my oldest had to have a ligament
replaced in May and I am afraid he will twist his other knee trying to get a way from the puppy.

When the puppy gets too out of control, I put him in his crate to calm him down.  I tried the can with coins in it thing to see if
that would stop him but all that manages to do is scare my two older guys.  This puppy does not seem afraid of anything.  We are
starting puppy kindergarden next week but not sure what the best approach to take with him.  He is harder than my other two ever were
and I got them at 8 and 9 weeks old.

I'm not sure how much of this is "normal" puppy play and how much is not.  I'm not sure what the best way to stop him is and
how much I should stop him.  He gets pretty out of control sometimes.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I want this to work and I know it can if I just figure out what I should do with this little
guy.

Thanks very much.

IT all sounds pretty normal to me - but having said that, especially bearing in mind your older dog is somewhat limited in his ability to discipline, you may well have to step in and teach him to 'cool it' every so often. Clap your hands to get his attention and call him to you, ask for a simple obedience behaviour that you know he can do (like 'sit') then reward him and encourage him to calm down with a firm slow stroking.  Do the other dogs have crates so they can be crated while the baby has a 'mad five mins' on his own?

Hi Digger,
Thanks so much for the response.  That is what I have been doing.  When he gets too wild, I will take him and make him sit down, tell him No then pat him and try and calm him down. 

The hand clapping does nothing, just like shaking a tin with coins.  Loud noises don't bother him.  Not sure of is early past but he seems very use to loud noises.

My two older boys are not crated and are very good, when I say "time out" and use a hand signal they calm down or they go out back and run it off.  This guy just has to learn the ropes.

What I have also started doing is to pick him up if he's too wild and bring him into another room with just me.  I play with him a bit and calm him down.  I find that if he's to wound up and I put him in his crate, he freaks out.  If I take the two boys out of the mix he will go lay down and take a nap, so sometimes I bring my older two upstairs and leave him downstairs with the TV on and he lays right down and goes to sleep.  This works pretty well most times.

So it sounds like you think this is pretty normal and will eventually calm down???  Like I said before I don't remember my middle guy being so hyper and my first guy was totally crazy but I had no other dogs so I thought that might be part of it.  This guy I think just really loves the two big guys and maybe it's just exciting for him.  Maybe I am thinking of this in human terms and not looking at it from a dogs point of view.  Maybe this doesn't bother them as much as me???

Thanks for the help and hopefully after next week I will get a better idea of what I can do when we start kindergarten classes.  I have never been so happy to get one of my dogs to class!!!

Thanks again.
karyn

Hi
I have this same problem with my Cavalier puppy. She is 8 weeks old and often growls and barks and nips and swipes at our boxer/irish wolfhound cross (just imagine the size difference). Mitzy (boxer x) is fairly old now and usually just ignores her but once or twice she has barked or growled back to warn. I try to stop Angel (Cav) from doing it but my bf has told me not to worry, its just play. I'm just hoping now she wont do it with any other dogs.

Hi Jeagle,
Sounds like your puppy has a lot of guts like my littel Shamus.  I know what you mean about the size difference.  Both my full grown goldens are 90lbs and on the larger side of the golden scale.  This little guy is only about 22lbs.  He really wants to be alpha I think.  I feel like my other two hate me now.  But maybe dogs like dogs.  They are very good with him, but I think if they had the choice they would not want him here.  They growl and snap back once in a while but boy it's really crazy  how much they will take before they get frustrated. 

Hopefully it will get better for both of us.  I'm hoping group training that starts for the puppy next week will help him deal with other dogs better too!

Good luck to you!.
Karyn