Hi,I wondered if anyone could give me some advice. We got a beautiful cavalier king charles bitch puppy 2 weeks ago and already had Poppy, a 4 year old Border Terrier. Mostly things are fine with them and Poppy is very patient with Rosie,the pup, even when she climbs all over her and swings from her ears!The thing that worries me is when Poppy is playing with her toys and running round or Rosie is just running in the garden Poppy gets very worked up and chases after Rosie growling fiercely and tackling her.Rosie usually drops to the ground and rolls over to show she's submissive and Poppy hasn't actually hurt her but I'm afraid she might and shes a very strong dog so could really do Rosie a serious injury.It's as if Poppy's scared of Rosie when she runs,either that or she sees her as a rabbit or other small animal to hunt! Do you think this is just harmless play or am I right to think she may hurt Rosie? We always stop Poppy by shouting at her or grabbing her collar to pull her away.Is that the right way to deal wih it? Help!!

Be sure you don't allow Poppy to feel that the new puppy is more important than her, or you will have major problems of resentment. Make sure Poppy has plenty of opportunity to get away from what she sees as an interloper on her territory, before she decides the pup's outstayed her welcome and can go home now! Poppy was there first, and needs to have her position boosted. Never leave them unattended and make sure Rosie has plenty of time away from Poppy when you can give Poppy your undivided attention, as she's used to.

Lots of older dogs (especially males, but not exclusively) don't really like pups very much, and who can blame them - we don't like being chewed with those sharp teeth either! It can take several weeks for a new pup to be accepted, and until then the resident dog usually does his or her best to put the pup in its rightful place - at the bottom of the pecking order. As long as you keep an eye out so that Poppy doesn't feel compelled to get serious then I'd allow her to keep Rosie lower-ranking, in the way normal adult dogs do to upstarts! If you think Poppy's getting too rough, stop the game, put Rosie in her crate or playpen and take Poppy for a walk.

Your task is to support Poppy, which usually goes against our own feelings of 'poor puppy, it's a sweet little baby'. To Poppy Rosie's a nasty noisy sharp little thing that's turned her happy life upside down - don't you turn on her as well! ;) Scolding her for normal canine behaviour isn't wise. Good luck!

I agree with Jeangenie entirely. Poppy is saying to the puppy 'if you want to be on my patch, you'll do it on my terms and don't get any ideas about trying to climb the pack ladder, ok'. As long as Poppy isn't actually attacking the puppy, it's good for the puppy to learn that she has to treat adult dogs with respect.

Addition: also give Poppy plenty of praise "Good girl, nice gentle girl" when she's playing nicely. You want her to associate the pup with pleasant experiences, not scoldings. :)

As long as there is no injury on either side then it is normal play, my 2 play some really rough games,growling snarling etc but no one gets hurt,the older of the 2 tend to just roll over and let the pup jump all over him, they take it in turns as to who starts the play. The older dog is at least twice the size of the pup and same breed.

I would make sure you supervise them at all times so you can call a halt if either yelps, have time out and let everything calm down. Also shouting "Gently" periodically helped me in the beginning to remind the older dog to be careful, he was used to playing with my Mum's dog,same breed and a year older who jumped all over him .

I have had the 2 since end of May and now I feel OK to leave them together in the kitchen when I go out.

I hope your settle down to a friendly and mostly peaceful existance together.

Rhona

Hi, Thanks for your replies and advice. Most of the time they are lovely together so I think Poppy's 'bonding' with Rosie,it's just the running she doesn't like! We are giving Poppy lots of quality time away from Rosie with walks and games of ball and as Rosie sleeps a lot of the time we leave her sleeping in the kitchen so Poppy has us to herself.It's just like when I had my 2nd baby!! We won't be leaving them alone together for a while yet and I'll make sure Poppy has lots of praise when she's being good with Rosie,which we do anyway really.

The terrier could hurt her. Terriers are a little like this. it may get better as the pup grows older and biger. just be carefull

hello, we have a border in our family, he really dislikes it when the other dogs run around like lunatics, his reaction is to get in the middle and tell them all off- noisily, sometimes he nips their legs to get them to cool down. he only joined the pack at christmas time- hes now 5yrs old, so he has always been like this. he would never hurt the dogs as he loves them all really, just detests all the comotion!

my advice is to encourage the good behaviour, goodluck with everything!x