My bitch developed a new behaviour sometime after her second season.  She was a fairly submissive pup, lying down to expose her tummy to most dogs, however once she gained adulthood she began to get growly towards pups and sometimes smaller submissive dogs.  She never actually bites but can sound quite scary.

This evening I took her for a run and we met a young springer pup.  My bitch's first reaction was to get very excited (360 degree spins), boistrous and playful with it, before suddenly getting snarly and nasty sounding at which point I put her on the leash. 

She is a beautiful 2 year old small munsterlander bitch with a sweet and loveable nature.  She loves everyone including our cats, so I'm puzzled why she should get so dominant with pups. 

I wondered if it could be jealousy.  Any ideas welcome.

Have you spoken to her breeder about it? Her breeder may have a better idea on how to help, as they will know how her mother reacts.

It could just be that as she is now mature she is just letting the pups know that she isn't a puppy any more, and therefore feels dominant.

My 7 year old Large Munsterlander makes snarling, growling noises when she is playing, but it doesn't mean that she is nasty. It bothered me at first, but I soon realised that it was just her way of speaking. Noises often seem more threatening to us than to another dog. How do the pups react? Do you feel that they feel threatened? If you want to PM or e-mail me please feel free to do so. Linda.

I haven't spoken to her breeder about it, but I have heard that when when several of my dog's littermates visited the breeder during the summer, the mother-dog was apparently very snappy with them all, possibly exacerbated by the fact that she had recently had a second litter.

Quite often pups will get growled at by my dog, back off, then just keep coming back for more, so it could be a case of me misreading my dog's growling as worse than I think it is, or it could be a case of the pup's inexperience not reading my dog properly!

what is her body language while she is making these noises ? is she still gamboling around?, does the puppy come back for more? My dog sounds scary when he plays but his body language is that of play ( tail wagging, bouncing around,relaxed, etc,) you need to look at the whole picture. if i then put mine on a lead frustration kicks in and doesnt help things, I went through a long stage of worrying about this. Now i realise that the more excited he is the louder he is, when he plays with his ridgeback friend who likes to wrestle with him people look at us aghast!!! I got a few people with experience to observe this behaviour and listened to their opinion which set my mind at rest.

Some bitches just do not like puppies, nothing wrong with their temperament but they do not like puppies for various reasons.  Neither of my bitches would tolerate puppies although their temperament was outstanding; a bit like me, I do not tolerate small children very well........... :D

I don't blame any mature "laydee" being intolerant of pups. Like who needs some junior upstart bouncing around sniffing your bottom and hanging off your ears? :D

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