My male Jack Russel almost killed our new female puppy. What should we do?

Question

Dear Mr. Ed Frawley:

    I found your website on the internet, and I was hoping you would be willing to help with some advice or maybe a referral to someone who would be able to help us.

    I am sorry to say that we are having a problem with our Jack Russell Terriers. We have a 5 month old male Jack Russell Terrier who we bought from a friend who bought him from a pet store called "Just Puppies."

    We have had our male dog for about 1.5 months. My husband bought me a 12 week old female JRT for mother's day. He bought the female from a JRTCA breeder who was home raised - she is the best, we have had for a little over a week.

    Our male "Rusty" is not a very happy dog, he hardly ever wags his tail (he was 5 months old on May 14th - he is 13.5 inches at the withers and approximately 13 to maybe 14 lbs.). Our female "Molly" is very happy - she wags her tail everywhere she goes, great with our child, we already love her very much (Molly is now about 13 weeks and only 5lbs).

    We have tried letting them duke it out and we have tried keeping them apart for a few days, because Rusty bites her and pulls on her ears. Rusty is always growling, baring his teeth, and biting (Molly at first was taking the abuse, but now her fur stands up and she is growling also). The first night they were home together he pinned her down by the neck and she was gasping for air (she couldn't even yipe in pain). Molly can be walking across the yard and Rusty will go over to her and bite her legs, neck, or back - sometimes he will start dragging her. He is not playing with her - she could be sleeping or using the bathroom and he will do those things to her. She is not allowed to play with toys or anything else without him lifting his lips and baring his teeth and starting a fight over it. He doesn't allow her to eat or drink without pushing her out of the way. She will wait for him to stop eating or drinking and will take her turn, but Rusty just comes back over and pushes her out and tries to eat all the food he can Molly's ribs are starting to show). Molly on the other hand is playful - she has the best temperament, but she is getting sick of Rusty - it is very apparent that she dislikes him and does not want to play with him - and she is starting to act aggressive like him.

    What can we do? Will this problem change? Rusty will kill Molly if left unattended there is no doubt in my mind about that. We want to help the situation, but we are worried that nothing will ever change. Please help me with some advice or a referral if possible.

    Thank you,
Rashel

    P.S. We already spoke with the breeder of the female and she referred us to a trainer. She said that we should not break up the fights, but we tried doing that and Rusty got Molly by the throat and once again she was gasping for air and he would not let go, when we finally got him to let go - Molly sat up and puked. We have watched the dogs and Molly has been very submissive with Rusty, but Rusty seems to be looking for a lot more than alpha status. The trainer that we spoke with seems to give dogs higher precedence over children, and we thought since you have children you would have better advice. Rusty has snapped, nipped, or bit (whichever word you would prefer to use) our child at least twice and has tried several times, but luckily they are always supervised. The trainer said that we should not allow our child to be around the dog when he has a toy, food, or bone - but that seems virtually impossible considering he always has one of those things. Our child is NEVER left unsupervised with either dog, but when our child is just trying to be nice (by petting or hand feeding - never hitting, teasing, or playing), what can you do?

    I left out one thing....Rusty is a coward is scared of certain balls in our yard, loud noises, and you can not pick him up by the scruff of his neck because he starts yelping so loudly that you would think someone is killing him. No one has ever done anything to him at our house, except for when he bit our child he was picked up by the scruff of his neck and told "NO!" and put in his carrier. I don't know what ever happened to him, but my guess is someone has mistreated him to the point of nervousness. The first few days we had him he wouldn't even come to us - he seemed scared of us, but yet curious about the things we were doing. We are scared that our child is the one who will end up hurt. Please help.

Accepted Answer

Let me begin by saying this breeder is wrong. I cannot stand stupidity and this breeder exudes it.

Let me say that the puppy looks to the pack leader (YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND) for protection. You are doing 100% the wrong thing in not protecting this poor puppy. Put yourself in this pups position. If you come into a new home and someone comes around and try's to kill you, what would you do? When you have a good answer for this you will begin to understand the poor female puppy.

I am not sure why peoples common sense seems to go down the toilet and out the door when it comes to dogs, but it often does. This is a perfect example. Unfortunately people are given the titles of BREEDER and TRAINER and because of this they become experts. Too often they are long on advice and short of common sense.

Your male needs his butt kicked. He needs to learn some manners or suffer the consequences of not minding. He needs to learn that YOU and YOUR HUSBAND are the pack leaders and you will not tolerate this.

If you would like to learn something about the principles of obedience training a dog, read the description for my Basic Dog Obedience video. You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog. You can also read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes.

You have to spend some time on my web site reading the articles on Dominant Dogs and the Q&A sections.