Pup Fighting?

The pup's just being a pup. You should make sure that he's not annoying the older dog, & it sounds like he is. You need to make sure the older dog has her space. The pup is the newcomer & shouldn't be allowed to take over. He needs to be trained to become a proper family member. He needs to be played with by the humans a lot because as a pup, he needs a lot of play time for all that energy. You can train him as you play. When he gets to rough play time stops, instantly. When he plays nice you tell him good boy & reward him with a toy. Nice gets rewards, to rough gets him ignored. And the same with playing with the adult dog. To rough & it's time out, time to separate. You can gate him in the kitchen or somewhere where he can still see. Don't put him in a cage because those should never be related to anything negative.

This is normal behavior if you ask me and remember that the dogs will growl and sound mean or whatever in order to establish who is Alpha. I would say only to step in if it seems as if one or both of them start to fight and someone might get hurt.

I also have a pit bull, female. I only have the one dog, but from my experience, Pits are more protective of their "things" (toys, bones, space, humans etc.) than most dogs. Although I am sure he is just trying to establish his "things" with the Shepard, you have to make sure he doesn't get overly agressive. We were told when our dog was a pup to wait until she was AT LEAST a year before playing tug-of-war with her. This gives them permission to growl and snarl when you are taking something of theirs. I would only step in if things get too serious. But if he is becoming mean, chances are he is protecting something and would try to protect it from you also. He is only a pup now, but when he is bigger, if rules aren't established now, he'll find it acceptable to growl and snarl and even snap at you in the future.

I also had a oit puppy & an adult dog, to me it worked out better by letting them play til the older snapped the younger. Therefore when my pit grew up & was much bigger than the older one, he still knew where his bounderies were.

Anonymous

January 20, 20060 found this helpful

as a dog trainer in training I can tell you that the Pitt wants to play of course and the Shepherd also wants to play but when she tires of the playing, she growls to let the baby know she's had enough. A mother dog will do the same thing to her pups. It's important of course that these two dogs get used to each other but it's also very important that the baby gets lots of exercise to release some of that energy so it isn't constantly irritating the older dog. You might want to find something else for the pup to do and if you just can't keep the two dogs apart, let the two dogs 'work it out'. The pup might get nipped but after a couple of good ones it will learn that it isn't always play time!!!

I have an 11 month old Jack Russell Terrier that is generallly well behaved without any aggressive tendencies. I recently got an 8 week old puppy (also a JRT). The two are very curious about each other and always seem to want to bbe together. However, when I let them at each other, they roll and growl and bite at each other.