Just brought home a 12 week old puppy today.  She's very tired and overwhelmed by everything. I have two other dogs a 9 yr old BC cross and a 20 month old BC cross - the puppy attempted to lick the bits of the younger dog and she told the pup off, Pup very scared by it......thing is - since then Pup is growling at her all the time - Is this normal for such a young pup to growl at another dog - ?

Difficult to gauge over the internet My Puppies always play growl & bark at the older dogs whilst giving the play invitation puppy bow & body postures & my adults either totally ignore  them as being beneath their contempt, run & hide(especially the males-usually to protect their boy bits ;))or revert to puppy behaviour themselves

My late GSD used to tell off all the other dogs & kept the puppy with her at all times !

Hi Xenaqueen

I have just introduced another gsd pup to our household and he too growls and barks at the others although it is definitely play, he growls and then invites them to chase him and if they don't he barks at them. My oldest male has taken to completely ignoring the pup whereas my bitch is more than happy to have her ears pulled at and her tail chewed:rolleyes:. Just make sure you give your other 2 dogs plenty of time out from an annoying little pup.

Good luck

If you're worried, (and I'd suggest this for any new pup owner) enrol pronto into puppy socialisation classes. However, you have to be very careful as some classes are run very badly eg all the pups allowed to charge around together which can sometimes cause pups to learn the wrong things.

If you try www.puppyschool.co.uk or www.apdt.co.uk you should find help - do enrol fast though as classes get filled very quickly :)

Lindsay
x

Hi ....

Things have progressed slightly today .....not for the good i don;t think.

The pup started playing with the dog she's being growling at, but then later on he picked up a toy, the older dog went to play with it with her and the pup growled and then lunged at my oler dog as if to have a go........

What is that all about - this pup seems to be trying to be very dominanat ...... but at twelve weeks old????? isn't that strange?

Sounds quite normal to me

I do hate the dominance word, a truly dominant dog actually does very little to show it's dominance, a look or body posture but no obvious displays