After a month of adopting my male poodle, he and my two females are getting along well. My younger female has started climbing on my older female. Advice?

This is absolutely because of the third dog. It makes perfect sense if you understand dog psychology. Adding a third dog completely changes the dynamics. What you are seeing are posturing and the warning signs of a fight brewing.
Introducing Dogs is the article I would read and I would tighten up the structure and control on all the dogs now. Don’t wait until you have a fight.

Think about how 2 kids play nicely until a 3rd kid is added to the mix. It changes how everyone relates to each other. We have horses too, and they are the same. 2 horses do fine, add a 3rd and watch everything change. Your 3 year old dog is claiming the dominant spot over the 7 year old, which she may never have felt compelled to do when it was just the two of them.

I’d be doing our groundwork with ALL the dogs, not just the new one and not just the 3 year old.

Here’s the Groundwork program and the video that picks up where the article leaves off - Pack Structure for the Family Pet.

I would never let these dogs all together unsupervised and I would make sure I had leashes on them so I could control whatever situation may occur.

We have tons of information on pack structure and dominance on the website. I would direct you to the search function in the upper left corner of the website for any additional questions you may have. If you type in your key words it will guide you to articles, Q & A’s and posts on our forum.

Cindy

I’m sorry to hear about the fight but certainly not surprised. The best advice I can give is to follow the groundwork article I sent you in my original email, do this with ALL dogs. You’ll need 3 crates and a new mindset. I’d also recommend dominant dog collars, at least for the females. Your dogs should not be allowed together without supervision any more, maybe not ever (whether you keep the male or not). Taking 2 dogs who were displaying the kind of posturing they were and then putting them together behind closed doors was a big mistake as you found out.

Corrections once the dogs are already posturing don’t usually do much. Your dogs require much more leadership from you, all day, every day.

Owners of dogs like yours underestimate the genetic power of "PACK DRIVE." Pack structure is not something new and it is not optional, and if you don’t provide the structure and leadership a dog NEEDS then he or she will behave as canines have for thousands of years and will structure your family and household their own way.

I’m not sure which DVD you ordered? I really still recommend Pack Structure for the Family Pet but since you’ve now had a full blown fight you’re going to need Dealing with Dominant & Aggressive Dogs. It shows you how to correct the dogs properly when they start to show the signals (which can be very subtle).

I’d spend a lot of time reading on our website, your problem is a common one and there is so much information there that you can be studying while you start your dogs over. There is also an article on how to break up a dog fight. Use the search box on the upper left corner.

Cindy