Tiny puppy dominating adult Boxer-help!

[CJ's mom]

Hi,
I need some advice. We have a 3 month old male Min Pin puppy and a 3 year old male Boxer. The Boxer is not particularly submissive, but he is not dominant, and has the patience of a saint. He used to go to Doggie Daycare, where they discouraged any sign of agression, so he might think it is not ok to stand up for himself. The Min Pin on the other hand is a little hellion. He is jealous, growls and lunges at the Boxer when the Boxer comes over for attention, steals his food and toys, and sits down in the middle of the Boxer's bed so the Boxer doesn't have enough room and doesn't try to get his bed back. The little Min Pin can be held in line just by holding him down and saying no when he is showing this type of behavior. But the Boxer will not stand up for himself. Occasionally he does get a little fed up and will growl at the pup just a little and the puppy does seem to get the message. But he will also whine to the pup as if the puppy was the boss. I don't want to encourage agressiveness, but I feel terrible watching this tiny puppy that is smaller than a cat walking all over my Boxer at 3 months old! They do get along ok otherwise. The size difference stops them from playing together much, the Boxer is just too careful, too gentle, he doesn't even try to play tug of war with the puppy. It just really bothers me that the Boxer now appears to be afraid to come to bed if the puppy is in bed. He shouldn't allow this puppy to do this should he??? What can I do so they grow up happy together???
Thanks,
Rita

 

[Boxeraddict]

Not an expert but - is it possible that because the mini pin is a new puppy you are giving it alot of attention? more attention than the boxer gets (seems to me this would be easy to do cuz puppies are so cute!)?
Are you feeding the puppy before the boxer? Maybe the Boxer thinks the pup is at a higher level in the pack than he is due to the amount and type of attention it gets.

I have read that it is important to feed in the order of the heirarchy of the pack - top dog gets fed first and so on.
It could be that the boxer feels his place has been taken by the pup and that his status has been moved down a notch.

Again, no expert here and I have no idea if you are already behaving in a manner that stays true to the heirarchy... just a thought

Good luck!

 

[CJ's mom]

Yes, that's definitely a possibility. The puppy does get a lot more attention cause I can't take my eyes off of him, trying to avoid accidents and watching what he's chewing on. The Boxer (CJ) is already well trained so he has been getting less attention-even with us realizing this and going out of our way trying to reassure him. As far as feeding, someone else has mentioned the order of feedings, so I have only just started paying attention to that for the last couple of days. Before that CJ was free feeding and the puppy probably did think he was getting fed first. I had to stop free feeing CJ anyway because I realized I have a cat that's eating more dog food than cat food and that's not very healthy. So now CJ gets his kibbles first, then the puppy, but the puppy is stealing CJ's food before he gets his own, and CJ lets him. (CJ is not ready to finish his portion yet-it will take more time to adjust to meals after free feeding for so long) There has been no agression over food from either of them-I hope that's a good sign.
I am also letting CJ "baby-sit". Since the puppy is not house broken and not crate trained, if I want to sleep I either sleep with the puppy close enough so I wake up if he moves, or I lock him in the kitchen. He is more calm if CJ is also there, otherwise he screams his little head off. So CJ ends up getting locked in the kitchen with him. Is this unfair to CJ? Should I leave the puppy in there and have CJ with me to show the puppy that CJ is higher up than him? I didn't realize getting a second dog would create so many new questions, CJ is such a good dog that I figured it would be no problem, but there's much more to it this time around than with one dog alone. I don't know where I can even start learning about this kind of stuff! Even the simplest thing such as saying "no" is complicated now since I'm not sure CJ knows that the "no" is for the puppy and not him-and I don't want him to get used to hearing it and ignoring it either!

 

[Tulsa-Dan]

Adult dogs give puppies a lot of leeway. They allow much more than they would from an adult dog.

When the pup's adult hormones start kicking in, the adult dog will smell this and start laying down the rules for the pup.

In the interim, if the adult dog shows signs of stress from the MinPin, remove the pup and let the older dog rest and get away. Otherwise, he'll take care of that pup when the time comes.

Good luck.

 

[Bustern'Macy]

We have 3 dogs, 2 boxers and a pug. We have been through the same stuff as you are discussing. Our first was Buster (boxer) and we had a hard time when we got the pug because she was so little. Buster was very good about not hurting her but he did let her run the show. She is now 2 and he is 3 and he has regained the control it didn't take to long and we learned not to change his life from how it was. If he is used to sleeping with you guys don't lock him up because that may make him resent the puppy. Just try to keep things the same as they always have been and the 2 will adjust to one another pretty quick. Dogs are smart and won't hurt a puppy usually so as the puppy stage goes away the older bigger dog will reagin control. Good luck puppies are fun but they are alot of work too.

 

[LeahR]

Our new pup is aggressive and dominates our older boxer as well. I keep telling Mason to "let her have it" so she knows when enough is enough. He is too nice to her, she torments him sometimes, I feel so bad :( I am hopng that he is tolerating this behavior b/c she is so much smaller than him, that as she gets bigger he'll stick up for himself more!