What To Do When Your Dog Doesn’t Like Puppies

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boxer puppy dog doesn't like puppies

We brought home a five-week-old puppy last night. Brindle, stubby-legged, and smoosh-faced, Mia the boxer puppy toddled around our apartment whimpering. A Good Samaritan purchased her in a parking lot but wanted her to be cared for, so he or she brought her to the shelter. When I knelt to meet Mia in her kennel, she groveled and screamed, frightened of me. I decided to take her home for the night for a bit of TLC since her actual foster family couldn’t take her until the next day.

Barley, our four-year-old border collie, did not seem happy. He stared at his toys, lip licking and yawning as Mia started to bounce and play bow and paw at things. If she crawled under him to paw at his legs or nip at his belly fur, he moved away with a short deep growl. As she approached his Kong Wobbler, he lifted his lips into a fantastic display of his teeth. This was not going well.

A note: for the purpose of this article, I’m focusing on Barley, not Mia. While Mia was in the midst of a very important developmental period of her life, she was apparently confident around other dogs (not so much with people) and unphased with Barley. Part of teaching him to be calm around her was for her benefit as well. In real life, it’s imperative to balance both dogs and their needs.

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You might also want to check out our archive of posts on dog-dog relationships or aggression in dogs. You’ll find lots of great info there!

Yelling, Snarling, and Other Unwanted Emotional Reactions

Caught off guard by the first growl, I overreacted. I yelled a sharp, loud “Hey!” and glared at Barley. He lay down, lip licking, and put his head on his paws, holding soft eye contact with a furrow in his brows. Mia continued toddling about, unphased by my rudeness.

An important note here: puppies, especially very young ones, are often terrible at reading human and dog body language. An older dog likely would have noticed Barley’s canines and backed off. A 5 week old puppy did not. That’s why management is so important for the safety of young puppies.

I immediately recognized my error, but the fear and emotion made it hard to remedy. I knew that punishing Barley by yelling at him would only make him more uncomfortable with the puppy. This would further hurt our chances of successfully bringing home a puppy later on.

I needed to take a step back from my emotional, reactionary state. Barley’s lip-lifting was concerning enough. We didn’t want it going further and potentially scaring or harming Mia. I also didn’t want Barley to suppress his emotions and let Mia torment him if she made him uncomfortable. We needed a game plan to help Barley and Mia get along for the next 24 hours.

I took a moment to run through my mental “dangerous dog scoresheet” (you can fill one out for free here), and decided that the situation was under control.

I also needed to make sure that I didn’t just give up, calling Barley aggressive, or dominant. Labeling him wouldn’t help our future training!

I took Barley for a long walk to think. We had zero intention of keeping Mia, but we do want to bring home a puppy in two to five years. Barley has successfully shared space with puppies as young as four or five months and recently spent a week cohabitating with an eight-month-old golden retriever. His original owner also had a year old husky, so I assumed he had some puppy experience.

But we needed a plan for tonight, and eventually would need a long-term plan if my hopes of getting another puppy were to pan out.

dog doesn't like puppies
Walks are a great time to think and calm down for both parties. We both needed to stop reacting emotionally to the situation.

What To Do If Your Adult Dog is Uncomfortable With Puppies

After our walk and a bit of Frisbee, I had a bit of a game plan. I technically had the option to just totally separate the two dogs for the next twelve hours, but I wanted to use this as a learning opportunity for me and Barley.

I often struggle with my emotional response to unexpected setbacks, and Barley clearly needed some good experiences with a puppy. Rather than putting off that experience creation until Barley is six to nine and is even more set in his ways, I wanted to do a bit of training for Barley now. Waiting until we actually purchase or adopt a puppy will just set Barley up for weeks, months, or years of stress because he is unprepared and has no way out.

We had three main goals for the next twelve hours.

  • No punishment allowed if your dog doesn’t like puppies– that would only make Barley’s negative opinion of Mia worsen since he’d learn that Mia = yelling. Barley is a sensitive soul and yelling definitely freaks him out.
    • This is really important for any dog that struggles emotionally with people, dogs, or situations. Aggression is often related to fear or discomfort, and punishing Barley would not make him feel better about Mia. It might make him stop growling, but that’s only because I could convince him that I’m scarier than Mia!
  • We needed a safe setup for the next twelve hours. Rather than letting Mia run amok and tackle Barley as she pleased, we needed to keep her safe. At only five weeks old Mia was not reading Barley’s body language that said: “get away from me!”
    • To keep her safe and Barley happy, we set her up in the bathroom with a puzzle toy. This also is a nice, easy-to-clean space for puppy accidents.
  • Your dog needs a break. Try to give your adult dog other things to do, particularly relaxing things like nosework, training games, and impulse control games.
  • When your dog doesn’t like puppies, you need training. I used a combination of classical conditioning and operant conditioning (brush up on those terms here) in several short training sessions with Barley. I’ll describe that in more detail below.
    • A note on safety: Barley is known to bare his teeth, growl, and even snap when other dogs approach his food. He’s never caused injury, but I have little doubt that he would if pushed. I had to be careful to walk the line between reward-based training and keeping him from guarding food against Mia.
    • If I were more concerned about Barley biting Mia, I absolutely would put a muzzle on him.

It’s important to recognize that I didn’t just allow the dogs to “work it out.” That was far too dangerous for Mia and was likely to teach Barley that overt aggression or avoidance was the best strategy for dealing with puppies.

If I were more concerned about Barley, I would have spent more time with them separated, used a leash or muzzle, or even abandoned the training altogether. We also ensured that we set the dogs up for success by keeping them separate 90% of the time that Mia was in our home after the initial unfortunate greeting.

puppy scared dog doesn't like puppy
It’s not fair to the puppy to let an adult dog who doesn’t like puppies scare or hurt her. Safety is top priority!

Training an Older Dog to Tolerate a Puppy

Like most training, changing a dog’s opinion about something (which was essentially my goal) is best done in short training sessions. I kept the dogs mostly separate and played calming music to soothe both their nerves.

Over the course of twelve hours, I did several training sessions with Mia and Barley. Each training session was just about 1 minute long and there was generally at least a half hour between sessions. Here they are.

    1. Approaching. With Mia in the tub, I pulled out my treats and clicker. Barley originally just hung out on the couch, about as far from the bathroom as he could get. I sat on the toilet and waited. Barley eventually poked his head around the corner to the bathroom. As soon as I saw him, I clicked and tossed a treat behind him. He retreated to collect the treat. We repeated this for about 1 minute or 30 treats. We did this exercise twice.
    2. Getting closer. When Barley started hanging out near the bathroom and even wagging his tail slightly, I started waiting a bit longer. He had to step into the bathroom in order for me to click and then toss a treat. Again, I tossed the treat behind him so that he got to go take a break. We did this once, because about 45 seconds into this session, he came and sat next to my leg.
    3. Eye contact. With Barley sitting next to me on the toilet, I started waiting for him to glance towards Mia in the tub. Mia was still wrestling with her toys. Every time his eyes or ears flicked ever-so-slightly towards Mia, I clicked and handed him the treat. We did this for about 1 minute as well.
      • I started handing him treats at this point so that he stopped checking the floor for treats. This was preparation for later when I wanted to hand him treats without Mia getting herself in trouble.
    4. Sustained eye contact. I upped the criteria by now waiting for Barley to look at Mia for a bit longer before I clicked and gave him a treat.
    5. Changing the situation. I now placed Mia inside Barley’s wire crate and moved to the living room. This was to help teach Barley that this “Look at Mia” game didn’t just apply when Mia was in the bathroom. We repeated steps 3 and 4 here.
      • Note that all of this interaction is under Barley’s control. If he wanted to move away from Mia, he could. This is important!
    6. Letting Mia out. I then sat on the ground with Barley while Andrew played with Mia. Mia toddled around, loose and terrifying. We repeated the “Look at Mia!” game. Mia occasionally moved towards Barley, in which case Barley got a gigantic “bonus” in pay – several treats in a row. We separated the dogs again and did a few short sessions of this.
        • We never forced him to interact and if he growled or moved away, we let him do so.
    7. Touching. Right before I brought Mia back to work, we did another session. This time, Mia was allowed to move freely. Barley got rapid-fire clicks and treats for looking at Mia and jackpots for letting Mia approach or even touch him. We did three thirty-second training sessions like this.
      • Due to time constraints, Barley never really got comfortable with Mia out and about, especially not touching him. If Mia stayed in our home for longer, we’d have spent far more time working on steps 6 and 7 to increase Barley’s comfort level around the scary puppy.

The important thing to notice about this approach is the multiple short training sessions, the emphasis on safety and comfort for both dogs, and the rapid-fire reward-based training. We didn’t actually get to a place where Barley and Mia could cohabitate in 12 hours. However, we did move from Barley totally avoiding Mia and growling if she approached to Barley calmly watching her approach him and taking treats from me.

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barley dog doesn't like puppies
Barley needs more practice to be a dog that does like puppies! For now, we’ll enjoy our one-on-one time with interspersed training.

Moving Forward When Your Dog Doesn’t Like Puppies

If we had more time, Barley would soon learn that tolerating Mia meant treats (aka, Mia is a good thing) and that he could always escape her if he wanted. We never forced him to interact. If he growled or moved away, we let him do so.

If and when we bring home another dog, we’ll do a similar protocol. We’ll do lots of parallel walks, give the dogs plenty of breaks, and help interrupt tense situations without scaring or punishing the dogs.

The good news is that we can definitely survive a few weeks of careful monitoring with a young puppy. Puppies eventually turn into adults!

In the meantime, it’s abundantly clear to me that I need to find some friends with puppies so that Barley can keep learning to be comfortable around the scary babies!

If you need more help with a dog that’s aggressive towards puppies (or simply uncomfortable), check out our online training options.

36 thoughts on “What To Do When Your Dog Doesn’t Like Puppies”

  1. Hi
    I’m not having much luck here. I have 2 female dogs that are 4 years old. We just rescued a 8 week old male border collie mix. One of my dogs likes him the other hates him to the point I think she is going to kill him. I’ve tried everything. Not sure if it’s a dominance thing at this point.
    Any suggestions welcome.

    Reply
    • Hi Barb. If you’re concerned for your puppy’s safety, it’s time to get help from a trainer who’s experienced in aggression cases ASAP. If you’d like to email me (kayla@journeydogtraining), I can help you find a good trainer in your area. For now, keep the dogs separate. It’s likely not dominance, as dominance conflicts between an adult dog and an 8 week old puppy would not result in violence!

      Reply
  2. Hi

    I too have a border collie. He is 3 years old. We do not have a puppy (we do have a 4-5 year old lab mix dog that he’s best friends with) and we don’t plan on getting a puppy for a VERY long time. However, Finn (the border collie) HATES puppies at the dog park. He generally ignores other dogs, perfectly content to just play fetch, but when a puppy shows ANY interest in him he snaps and attacks them. After reading this article i’m fearful that i ruined him forever because this has been going on for a while and every time it happens he gets in trouble and we leave the park… so now of course he sees puppy as he’s gonna get yelled at and leave his favorite place in the world. The hardest part about all of this is, since i don’t have a puppy, i can’t do any conditional training with him… I would really love your input. I know puppies don’t understand that when all of his fur goes up and he gets tense that they should leave him alone and for whatever reason they’re always very interested in him. I would love to not have to avoid the park any time there’s a puppy there.

    thanks,
    Samanhta

    Reply
    • Hi Samantha. You probably didn’t ruin him forever, don’t be too hard on yourself. What I’d recommend doing is setting up practice scenarios where Finn can see a puppy, but the puppy isn’t too close – then feed him treats. This might mean asking a local trainer if you can hang out near puppy kindergarten while the puppies are filing in for class. Obviously it’s harder when you don’t have access to a puppy for practice, and it’s important to keep the other puppies safe, but it’s not a lost cause!

      Reply
      • Thank you so much! We are working on it. I took him to PetCo and there was an adoption and every time he heard a puppy bark and looked at it (curiously not meanly) he got a treat. and then when we were leaving the park one day, there was a 6 month old puppy that he sniffed very nicely and he got a treat for that. So far so good. I was wondering, however, if I’m not supposed to yell and scream at him when he goes after a puppy, how should I react? Obviously the answer is, don’t let it get to that point, but hypothetically. When he’s gone after them in the past it’s not a full blown attack, it looks more like his herding. He goes after their ankles and blood has never been drawn. But he still shouldn’t do it. I just want to know what I can do to not cause more anxiety.

        Reply
        • That’s a really great start, Samantha! For when things are already going wrong, it’s best to call them away if you can. If you can’t, use leashes to pull them apart. It’s also generally easier to interrupt early in an interaction; it’s better to preemptively interrupt when you notice your dog is a bit stiff than it is to wait until things are already bad. I generally try to make breaking up fights as fast and efficient as possible, then work to make the dogs calmer afterwards. This might mean I yell to startle them during the fight, but then there’s lots of soothing afterwards on BOTH sides.

          Reply
  3. Hi
    I have a cross breeded 13 year old male dog, Boule whom I adopted about a year and a half ago. Boule had lived with a man who abandoned him a few months before I took him and during that time he stayed on the streets. He’s lovely with humans but most of the time cannot stand other dogs, especially male dogs.
    I just adopted a 5 weeks old puppy, Bella. Boule most of the time stares at Bella when I show her to him through his kennel. At times he’s not interested in her. Today she tried to get in his kennel and he growled at her partly showing his teeth.
    He looks sad and has started skipping his meal. He’s grown quite distant since the arrival of Bella and when he gets into the house he pees where Bella has been. Before Bella, Boule used to hang out in the house and at night we would put him in his kennel. With Bella here now, we have to keep her inside the house since she’s very small and this limits the time Boule gets in the house.
    I love Boule more than anything and can’t see him like this. Please any advice.

    Reply
    • Hi Yesha, at 5 weeks old your puppy shouldn’t be separated from her litter! That’s way too young. If you want to integrate Bella and Boule, you’ll need to work on desensitization and teaching them to interact safely. It sounds like Bella is really stressing Boule out – you might need help to get Boule to relax and feel happy again. Try the suggestions in this article and let me know if you need further help.

      Reply
  4. Hi!
    My boyfriends 8 year old italian greyhound hates my 12 week old catahoula puppy. He will try and play with her but quits when he realizes she can keep up with him and wants to play back. He has been the only dog in the house for 8 years and my boyfriend never solcialized him with other dogs when he was younger. My puppy has no problems with other dogs because I have a 3 year old border collie at home, but I dont want her to not get alone with his dog forever. His dog also has epilepsy and so when he gets worked up we get very worried about him having a seizure so we usually separate them and give him his space.

    Reply
  5. Hi! We just brought home a 8 week old puppy that is very timid of other dogs. The puppy does not jump or even really approach our 6.5 year old dog. The adult dog approached the puppy and they seemed to be fine smelling at the nose and then the adult growled and snapped at the puppy for seemingly no reason. We have kept them separated since but want to restart the introduction. If we follow your process, can we do this over a set of days or should do the whole process in a day and then just keep working on last steps a few times each days in subsequent days? (assuming the first steps go well). Thanks!

    Reply
  6. I have an 11 year old chihuahua mix. He is an outside dog (my parents absolutely) do not let dogs inside the house only when it’s too hot outside and then they are in there crate not roaming around. My boss recently gave me a 13 week old pitbull beagle mix puppy. He is super friendly with people and wants to play with my chihuahua, however my dog doesn’t seem to interested and will growl and bare his teeth as soon as the puppy starts to play with him or get near him. Gets to the point where we have to separate them because puppy doesn’t realize my other dog is not comfortable and continues to play which makes things worse for my chihuahua. My chihuahua (skippy) was never properly trained mostly due to my parents wanting him to be an outside dog. I work long hours and my parents are the type of let them “work it out”, “ they’ll get used to each other” type of people so I’m not here to supervise interactions for most of the day and I know they won’t either. Since they are both supposed to be sleeping and basically living outside unsupervised how can I help ease my chihuahua into not growling and snarling at the puppy when it gets close or tries to interact with him. Skippy seems to be territorial, and I don’t want any of them to hurt each other while they are outside. Is it too late to ease skippy in since he’s older and territorial? Is this a situation where I would have to give the dog back to my boss for her to find him another home? Anything I can do to help them out? We used to have another dog that passed away in November his name was Toby. Skippy and Toby weren’t the best of friends they tolerated each other mostly, they would sometimes get into fights that I’d have to intervene in, this happened maybe a handful of times in the 4 years we had Toby with us. When we first got Toby there was no training done to acclimate both dogs into each other, my parents basically just threw them together. Eventually they got along, Toby was considerably smaller than skippy when we got him so I think skippy didn’t see him as much of a threat and tolerated him and my parents were too worried about them fighting. But my new puppy is at least twice of skippys size so there is a major difference. Would I have to give up the new puppy?

    Reply
  7. I have an 11 year old chihuahua mix. He is an outside dog (my parents absolutely) do not let dogs inside the house only when it’s too hot outside and then they are in there crate not roaming around. My boss recently gave me a 13 week old pitbull beagle mix puppy. He is super friendly with people and wants to play with my chihuahua, however my dog doesn’t seem to interested and will growl and bare his teeth as soon as the puppy starts to play with him or get near him. Gets to the point where we have to separate them because puppy doesn’t realize my other dog is not comfortable and continues to play which makes things worse for my chihuahua. My chihuahua (skippy) was never properly trained mostly due to my parents wanting him to be an outside dog. I work long hours and my parents are the type of let them “work it out”, “ they’ll get used to each other” type of people so I’m not here to supervise interactions for most of the day and I know they won’t either. Since they are both supposed to be sleeping and basically living outside unsupervised how can I help ease my chihuahua into not growling and snarling at the puppy when it gets close or tries to interact with him. Skippy seems to be territorial, and I don’t want any of them to hurt each other while they are outside. Is it too late to ease skippy in since he’s older and territorial? Is this a situation where I would have to give the dog back to my boss for her to find him another home? Anything I can do to help them out? We used to have another dog that passed away in November his name was Toby. Skippy and Toby weren’t the best of friends they tolerated each other mostly, they would sometimes get into fights that I’d have to intervene in, this happened maybe a handful of times in the 4 years we had Toby with us. When we first got Toby there was no training done to acclimate both dogs into each other, my parents basically just threw them together. Eventually they got along, Toby was considerably smaller than skippy when we got him so I think skippy didn’t see him as much of a threat and tolerated him and my parents weren’t too worried about them fighting. But my new puppy is at least twice of skippys size so there is a major difference. Would I have to give up the new puppy?

    Reply
  8. Hi Kayla,
    Would you use this protocol if the older dog (my rescue) has GAD, and was nervous in general (no aggression) She was abused and lived through some trauma before I rescued her –
    She’s been through B-mod, but at this stage, 5 years later, I just manage her and keep her as comfortable as possible. Traditional meds and holistic care/support never helped much.

    I am getting a Sheltie puppy for dog sports. I’ve been putting it off for years hoping my girl would get better- but she never did 🙁

    All the past puppies I’ve had visit my house in the past
    cause my dog to just hide
    in my bedroom or her crate and practice avoidance.

    I know adding a puppy may seem cruel – but I want to follow my dog training passion – and still give my rescue a safe place to live out her years as best I can.
    Thanks

    Jennifer

    Reply
  9. Hi! I have a 4 year old Presa Canario (like a mastiff, 115lbs female) who generally is a sweet heart to friends and family BUT did not have much socialization and therefor only likes one dog (my mother in-laws dog) on walks she avoids other dogs and people. We just got a 9week old English bulldog/Shar pei mix female pup and my dog Bella is truly showing she doesn’t like her what do I do? Yesterday Bella went at the puppy for something that they’ve shared in the previous days (a long stick) puppy wasn’t nipping at her or anything but Bella turned and snapped to bite and when heard the puppy scream and yelp, tried to go back at the puppy twice until we could scream out loud enough. She didn’t “hurt” and I mean she didn’t puncture the puppy at all but what should I do?? It’s been almost 2 weeks and if anything Bella seems to be getting worse with the puppy.

    Reply
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  11. Thank you for this instructive and generous post. I really appreciate that you acknowledge how emotionally dispiriting it is when you experience a setback. My dog always liked puppies until we got another dog her age. Now she has attacked a few puppies in the park and we need to keep her leashed around any young dogs.

    Reply
  12. Hi Kayla!

    Thank you so much for this post. We have researched extensively about introducing puppies to adult dogs but no websites seem to give advice for when it’s not going well. We have two rescue pups, one with anxiety but when we introduced them to each other it went very well they were introduced at about 10 mos and 5 mos, respectively. We just brought home an 8 week old puppy and when we introduced them on neutral territory our adult resident dogs barely paid attention to him, they were unphased! They sniffed his bum and then went on their merry ways. However, when we got home there was some growling and teeth showing and barking. We have the puppy in a play pen and are making sure our adult dogs can see him clearly while engaging in activities they love (kong bones filled with PB or playing fetch) but whenever the adult dogs actually approach the playpen there’s more growling and some snapping. Do we use the treat method outlined in the article and emphasize the approach step and eye contact step? When will it be okay to safely integrate them? Thanks!

    Reply
  13. Hi!

    We have 2 Huskies from the same litter that are 2.5 years. One female (spayed) named Elsa and one male named Thor. Elsa lives with me and my partner and Thor with my parents. From Monday to Friday we take Elsa to play with Thor while we are at work, and they are both very happy. Thor goes on walks every Saturday by the beach and meets other dogs, he is usually nice and playful with females but not with males. Thor was recently paired with a nice female and we got a new puppy Anna, but decided for her to come live with us and Elsa. Because she is small we decided to have limited time with the big ones so she doesn’t annoy them too much as she does what puppies do – bite and not respect boundaries.

    Elsa gets along well with Anna and occasionally growls but not aggressively, usually when Anna is being too much or try to steals something from Elsa.

    Anna and Thor however have not been able to get along. We noticed that Anna is very vocal and so is Thor so they bark at each other a lot and Anna charges against Thor, to the point where he can’t really stand her now.. if we carry Anna he will smell and just be curious, but as soon as we put her down she tries to charge at him and he gets furious. This happens almost everyday for 3 weeks now.

    Anna is significantly smaller, we don’t know if this may be a factor?

    We are going to try putting Anna in the crate for a couple of minutes where Thor can approach her and leave whenever he wants, and giving him treats when he is just looking at her and not showing aggression.

    Any tips???

    Reply
  14. Hi,
    I have a a Pomeranian who is about 7 1/2 years old and I recently got a puppy who is three months old( a pitbull) The Pomeranian always snaps and growls at the puppy when he comes near her I don’t want the puppy to know that that kind of behavior is there is a big tension between them and when the puppy tries to play with her she doesn’t want to so she starts to pick a fight with the puppy I don’t know what to do. It gets out of hand And the puppy keeps on trying to play with her . What can I do to prevent this? What do I do when this happens( when they fight)? Also my Pomeranian doesn’t really go around many Dogs but I had a dog that passed away almost a year ago and they got along pretty well they did pick a fight sometimes but it was too much to worry about and he was also a Pomeranian. What can I do to make my dog Accept the puppy?
    Also the puppy is pretty calm and I try to keep both of them busy and I think my dog is probably jealous,scared, or territorial. Because she sniffs where he’s been sometimes. What should I do?
    Thank you

    Reply
    • Hi Isabella, introductions can be particularly hard when the puppy is energetic and as big as (or larger than) the older dog. Have you tried the separation and training tips outlined in the article above? How did those attempts go, if so?

      Reply
  15. Hi!
    I’m having trouble finding a specific answer to this that doesn’t involve old school “dominance” tactics.
    My 3 year old lab is a peach. Largely friendly (though she does pick the odd person to growl at for no reason I can discern…nothing consistent there at all), playful and happy but more focused on playing with her frisbee or stick than with other pups. She actually loves border collies as they seem to play the same way.
    Generally speaking she is …passive. She’ll drop her ball for a 3lb dog if it challenges her. If another dog takes her toy she’ll follow, and she may gingerly try to reach for it, but not often. She MIGHT try to take it back but usually only if she knows the dog well.
    The thing that throws me is how aggressive she can get with fearful dogs and puppies. As soon as a dog licks her under the chin she’s that next level growl and snapping. She’s also done this thing where it looks like she’s jabbing their neck with her nose, if their small scared dogs. That one involves more of a head up tail up posture… like she’s taunting them?

    I don’t understand how my otherwise extremely passive friendly dog can get so shark eyed with these dogs. How do I curb it?

    Reply
    • Hi Noel – it’s hard for me to say, but it sounds like overall your dog is actually less comfortable with dogs than we’d like. The extreme passivity might be a sign of discomfort. So when dogs are fearful of her or really young, she may actually feel comfortable enough to tell them off (which she wouldn’t do with other dogs because they scare her, too). I would focus on building her confidence around other dogs and interrupting her when she’s rude to other dogs – calling her away for a treat or something like that. Teaching dog-dog social skills is pretty challenging but it can be done.

      Reply
  16. I think this is going to work i introduced my 8 year old pomeranian to my 9 week old german shepherd and things got out of control fast the older pup literally attacks the puppy now i know that the pup is just trying to play but my older dog hasnt been around a puppy in over five years. i tried the bath tub and calling my older pup in and that worked for a little bit till i thought that i was giving them to many treats so i stopped for a little while will be trying again in a couple hours. i cant thank you enough for the wise words. Because i was getting to the point where i didnt know what to do i was getting pretty upset that i couldnt do anything but this has given me hope that theyll be okay soon together.

    Reply
  17. Thank you for your input, Kayla! It was great to see a balanced dog can have some trouble with puppies, too. It gave both great advice and solace.

    Reply
  18. i have a 3 year old labradoodle and i recently just got a 8 week old pup. every time ziggy tries to go near the older dog, she snarles. when zig was in the cage, he wanted out, and he was jumping on it. all of sudden the older dog jumped and tired to hurt him through the cage. she has been around puppies before and has always done well.

    Reply
  19. Hey guys we’ve recently just picked up a 9 week old staffy cross bull Arab he’s a beautiful dog but our 18month old staffy cross rottweiler
    absolutely hates him at first she was happy to play with him but I think she may more or less may be jealous in some kind of way because she snaps and shows teeth every-time he is near my partner has real bad anxiety so anytime this happens she starts to cry and get really scared that she will hurt him what would you recommend us doing to try and get them to get along

    Reply

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