Hi all most of you will prob have seen some of my posts already asking these daft questions but i have recieved many helpful answers to so i hope you can do the same with this question! As you know i have a 2 1/2 year old lab, and a recently aquired 6 mth lab pup. We have had the pup now for about 2 weeks. Initially the elder 'benji' continued to hump him for the first day of introduction but thankfully it has now stopped! We have both been very cautious in the past few weeks in terms of still afirming to benji that he is top of the pecking order between the two of them, i.e letting him through the door first, feeding him, and showing him attention first etc etc. Now that a couple of weeks has passed benji has started to growl, bark and 'go' for 'jack' the younger in terms of biteing his ears and taking hold of his neck with his jaws whilst growling and pulling him. In light of this jack obviously bites back and tends to make the situation worse! Initially i thought it would be a pecking order situation as they only tended to behave like this when we were around, i.e fighting for our attention etc but they have started to do this when we are not near them too! Is this playing or fighting??
Sorry for the long question but i would like to hear your opinions.

Many thanks again,
Mark

Hi Mark - firstly this is not a daft question ! :)

I'm no expert, but Benji's behaviour towards Jack could just be his way of re-inforcing the pecking order. Unless they are doing harm to each other it's probably OK to let them sort this out between themselves. Usually the growling and pulling sounds a lot worse than it is - if Benji wanted to do real harm to Jack he would obviously have the advantage being the bigger dog.

Although you are doing things to reaffirm the pecking order, it might turn out that the younger one becomes the top dog, and trying to resist this might cause problems.

Having said this, I am still unsure about the pecking order of my two boys - it seems to change on a daily basis !!

Best of luck :)

Joyce

HI Joyce, I hope it is OK and i do useually let them get on with it but these past few days it has been getting worse and i cant help but get concerned because the last thing i want is for it to get out of control!

Regards

Mark

Help again please John!!

The fighting/playing is getting worse are they still trying to establish a pecking order? (introduced new pup 3 weeks ago) should i let them get on with it or try and stop them?!

Thanks again

Mark

My two used to do this for quite a while. I left them to it, neither seemed to want the other to stop, neither tried to back away. They would grab ears, necks, collars etc. There was never any blood and only ever a couple of tiny yelps if it got just a bit much. If they had ever hurt each other then I would have stopped it. Now they seem to have had enough of that game (several months later) and they just lie near each other now and snap their jaws at each other :)

I am not an expert, but tried to judge as to whether it was just an exuberant game or potentially dangerous. Hope that this helps :) Mine aren't labs - weight might be a problem with heavier breeds ?

Daisy

Play fighting is a normal thing. In the wild it is the training ground amongst the puppies for equipping themselves for the future both as regards catching food and defending the pack. Again, lets face it, they can't play cards, they can't get their paws around them ;) so play fighting is about the only game in town!

So saying, I always supervise it and step in if I think it is starting to get over the top. A happy rough and tumble is good fun and as long as it finishes still a happy rough and tumble then I'm happy. Breaking it up if it starts to get rough is also a good way of impressing on your dogs that you are in total control at all times. With two big strong dogs like Labradors it is essential that the humans word is looked upon as law and I take every oppertunity to make that point.

Regards, John