I would be grateful for opinions on the following 'issue'.  My beloved chocolate lab has been an only boy for 8 years but the last 3 weeks has been getting used to our new addition, a labradoodle boy.  Both dogs are brilliant and have settled in together pretty well generally.  When we are not at home Denny has the run of the kitchen and Errol is the other side of the baby gate where he definitely prefers to be. This is mainly because puppy (who is 13 weeks old) wants to play most of the time and has VERY sharp little teeth.  We are correcting him when he mouths us and my older boy is doing the same.  He makes a lots of noise and shows his teeth and when the little 'un gets too much for him he has put him on the floor a couple of times and gently nipped his neck.  This is all good and fine but the pup does not learn his lesson and will keep on going back for more (biting my older boys face and ears) until he gets so hacked off he starts to get a bit nasty.  This is where I would appreciate a bit of advice.  At what point, if any, do I step in and break it up? I know my older boy has to tell him what the rules are but this usually ends up in a very out of control situation where they are both tearing around and snapping at each other.  Any thoughts on this greatly appreciated.

How good are you at judging a dogs intentions?
If your pretty good at 'dog' and you trust the good nature of your adult male, you'll be able to allow him to teach the young upstart some manners. If you feel that pup may get hurt or worn out call 'time out' or as I say strongly "ENOUGH" and split them up to cool off.

Distraction works better than almost any other method of avoiding dog problems, so rather than letting the dogs mainly use each other for stimulation, you need to have more one-on -one time with both dogs so that 'little 'un' looks to you for his fun.
There are loads of 'mouthing' posts in the search history of this forum.

Good luck.Trust your dogs...they know how to work relationships :-)

I have a similar dilemma, but it actually involves a 4 month-old Sheltie and a very large male Maine Coon cat!

Puppy thinks cat is another puppy and wants rough-and-tumble play. She rushes to greet the cat with either a bear hug round the neck or running beside him "nudging" his lips.  Cat is amazingly tolerant and not adverse to a bit of close-contact sport either. They wrestle and snap at one another until eventually pup gets a nip and yelps. She may withdraw to a safe distance, but keeps darting in to nip at cat's paws and tail. Cat lies full-length on the floor, swiping at pup and ignoring the opportunity to escape by climbing out of pup's reach. Pup is now running in circles around the prone cat. Eventually cat has had enough and pins pup to the floor until she "submits". Only then will they sit quietly together.

My 3 other cats are more or less untroubled as pup doesn't like being hissed or growled at. Big cat is always silent during their interactions, as is the pup - no growling or yapping.

Distraction works, up to a point, but cat positively invites the contact by lying in the middle of the floor! Pup understands "Sit" and "No" in other circumstances, but has selective deafness when faced with this particular playmate.

At the moment the cat is bigger than the puppy and has the upper hand (and claws, which thankfully haven't been used), but it is much more difficult to police the comings and goings of a cat rather than another dog! I don't let the puppy stay in the garden unsupervised, in case the cat appears over the wall and one of them may get hurt.

My gut feeling is that their play will gradually become less robust and the cat will be "top dog" - which I am encouraging by feeding him first and making sure he has "safe passage" through the garden and kitchen.

But I'd be interested to hear how anyone else has handled dog/cat interaction.

We have 2 cats, one who does all the hissing, so all the dogs have avoided this one and won't even walk past him if in a close space
The other one doesn't really spat about, he puts up with a lot(he's my boy) and my dog loves to nuzzle him, something i guess abo9tu the feeling of fur on his nose. He tries to clean the cat as well, hilarious, when the cat realises what is actually going on he flies out the house..
They do get on well, but defo keep the cat being above the dog in the hierachy. Well thats my opinion with cats and dogs in the same household.

Though if the pup is allowed to chase your cat, then this could cause him to chase other cats while out on walks, that will need to be nipped in the bud(you;ve not mentioned it, but thought i would add it anyway).

ka7e -be careful, very careful. I have a lot of cats as I'm a breeder and when my first Papillon was a pup I thought it was just cute when he treated the cats as puppies and jumped on them etc. It worked fine with most of them, until one day he caught a cat in a bad mood, and got a quick whack across the face which punctured his eye. By a very skillful vet and a minor miracle he managed to not lose his eye but he hasn't got full sight in it and he ended up with other problems as a result -a fear of car journeys ever since the rushed trip to the vet when he was screaming in so much pain he could not stop throwing up, a fear of vets and a lack of early socialising as he had to have his eye stitched shut and an e-collar on for weeks on end. I'm now very wary of new pups and the cats -and especially so our two Maine Coons as I find their fuses are much shorter than the Persians and Exotics -plus of course they can do more damage due to their size. In other words, I'd cut this short and stop the pup from playing with the cat. It's not worth the risks.

Thanks tooolz. They were 'at it' again last night and I loudly (and obviously with some conviction!) said 'ENOUGH' and they both stopped short and looked at me as if to say 'OOoooo, ok, missus, keep your hair on.' and them settled down nicely together.  HOORAH!

Ive got two, two year olds and 999 times out of 1000 they play and grumble at each other fine. 1 time in 1000 the BC bowls over the CS and the CS reacts and the tone changes completely (about twice since we had them i think) I leave them alone. 1, I dont want to get bitten by going in to break them up and 2, if the BC has hurt upset the CS then the smaller dog shows he can hold his own and does. 5 minutes later its as normal. Im not sure what I would do if it happened frequently but, I think they are dogs, doing what dogs to and reminding each other of the status quo.