me!

last night there was kerfuffle between teagan and neb.

i should preface this by saying teagan has always been extremely tolerant of neb, from the moment he was brought home. as a little puppy he could climb all over her and hang off her. they've wrestled together for some time with no issues at all - if neb starts to get riled up, teagan will move away to let him calm down and then they'll start wrestling again. they play with toys together (basically, they run around swiping each other's toys and tugging, but they do this without any problems).

more recently, neb (who is around 9.5 months old i guess - born mid-april 2008) started humping teagan. i watch him for this and do not allow him to do so, and he's pretty good about not doing this now. teagan certainly wasn't appreciative, and it's not behaviour i wanted to allow/encourage.

i only had half an eye on the dogs last night, obviously i should've been paying better attention. neb was tethered to me and teagan was wearing her leash but free. neb jumped off a footstool he is allowed on and basically landed on teagan's hips/back end (teagan has hip dysplasia/a bone chip in her left hip). teagan FREAKED. she went after him by the face, he was yelping, i stuck my hand in to block teagan (i have a couple of tooth-sized red welts with some surrounding bruising today), than i basically pinned teagan by the neck against the wall to get her away from neb, grabbed her leash, and put her in her crate. i then went to check on neb, who was totally fine - no physical damage, and he was bouncing around wagging his tail, so i'd say any mental damage was minimal as well. i went back to teagan's crate and spoke to her very sternly about why she couldn't react like that (okay, am i weird?).

about 10 minutes later, i had neb out in the dog's room, teagan out on leash, and had her sit. she didn't react badly to neb at all, and neb was all excited to see her.

i know i should've protected teagan against jumping puppies hurting her, but i cannot allow her, with her history, and with the size difference, to ever behave that way to neb, regardless of the provocation.

what i'm going to do:

-allow them to interact, but no more rough play, including wrestling;
-keep a waaay better eye out on each of them;
-i'd recently reduced teagan's pain med dosage - i will put it back up to ensure she is comfortable

is there anything else to do? neither of the dogs is upset with the other, and both behaved normally around each other last night after the incident.

Frankly, if someone lept on me from behind, I'd kick the crap out of 'em too.

And it wouldn't have anything to do with joint pain.

Sometimes even dogs just respond without thinking.

In my opinion, it's totally unfair to correct a dog for reacting when it gets jumped on like that. Unfair corrections in situations like that can actually increase the liklihood of the older dog kicking some butt in the future. She may associate the presence of the pup with unfair corrections.

Like Alyssa said, I would react the same way if someone surprised me like that. I do. Ask Ed.

i hadn't thought of it that way, but fair enough. we know from the tent incident teagan doesn't like things falling on her without warning....

it just scared me so much, b/c i thought how easily she could kill him. i guess, to be fair, while i have little bruises on my hand, she was not biting hard enough to break skin, and neb had no visible injuries, and no reaction when i felt his face/neck for bruises.

a trainer told me with respect to teagan that she actually shows excellent control, it's just that she and i differ over behaviours at times. i suppose i could look at last night as she was controlling herself and didn't injure him, but my immediate reaction to be honest was wondering how easy it would've been for her to flip over and lose control. or just hurt him b/c of the size difference.

i see this one as my fault, not teagan's, but i'm thinking that taking better precautions in the future probably is a good idea.

 Quote: Cindy Easton Rhodes

In my opinion, it's totally unfair to correct a dog for reacting when it gets jumped on like that. Unfair corrections in situations like that can actually increase the liklihood of the older dog kicking some butt in the future. She may associate the presence of the pup with unfair corrections.

Like Alyssa said, I would react the same way if someone surprised me like that. I do. Ask Ed.

Heh.

I didn't formally correct her - I shoved her against the wall by the neck just b/c it was the easiest way to separate her from Neb, quickly, which was my first instinct to do. But I didn't keep her there pinned or anything, I immediately took her leash once she was separated and took her to her crate to calm down.

I hope that wasn't bad....b/c I recognize that this one's on me, not Teagan, but like I said, I just wanted her away from Neb as quickly as possible.

It's also why I had them out together, albeit more controlled, shortly after, so that both would have that positive interaction in their minds, not anything negative....hopefully! I did speak to her sternly though.

What should I do differently if it happens again (although obviously I need to make sure it doesn't)? Should I take Teagan off differently?

Did Neb surprise Teagan or did she see him coming?

I will preface this by saying I have never had the dog problems you have with Teagan.

However, I have had pups and adult dogs and multiple dogs. From what you describe, and without seeing it, it sounds like Teagan was giving Neb a good correction, not trying to harm him (I'll bet he never tries that stunt again, unless he is a real bone-head).

Neb is getting to the age where he is losing his "puppy licence" and will be corrected for obnoxious behaviour that was previously tolerated.

I have had my dogs, who generally get along well, suddenly have a "fight" (causing my heart to leap into my throat) when playing too rough, then immediately afterward be just fine with one another. I have no experience with *true* fights like you have - you'll have to use your "mother's instinct" here but I have a feeling it was not a fight. It was a correction.

I (personally) would not be concerned that the dogs are now mortal enemies, but realize that Neb is getting older and Teagan will no longer tolerate puppy idiocy from him as much as she once did. (I guess you can loosely compare it to a parent giving a child a spanking for being very rude - not that I am advocating letting Teagan correct Neb, nor necessarily spanking children!!! Just saying!) You will need to keep a good eye on Neb and make sure he is being a gentleman.

From your description she was giving him a good correction for rudely blindsiding her and hurting her. I am not an expert but I think you did the right thing by letting her know that giving a correction is YOUR job - but you should also have given Neb a good talking to as well. (He started it, and sounds like you let him get away with it! Maybe I am wrong).

Take it with a grain of salt!!!

Edit: I took so long to type this that all those replies happened in the mean time! Oops.

I was told on one of my recent posts that when my dogs got into their "squabble" I shouldnt have grabbed the aggressor and taken him over and put him in his cage- that I should have made him settle down right there and put him in a down stay and deal with it that way - but my first reaction -probably like yours - was to get the aggressor away from my other dog- the whole snarling and teeth baring thing is pretty startling - definitely keep an eye on them and make sure your pack leadership is in tip top shape-my problems started happening when sampson got about 1.5 yrs old -he wasnt a pup anymore and fero didnt/doesnt want to deal with his crap anymore-now I have a problem because my leadership was lacking- that may not be your situation at all but just be aware

Ok, in a hurry so don't yell at me if I missed something.

I think there are a few things going on here. One, you allowed Neb and T to play together when Neb was little. Not saying it was wrong, just stating a fact. Now, Neb is at that magical age where he is getting a bit out of hand and she has it in her mind, in some way, that she has the right to therefore correct him now, since in a way, she helped raise him. Way too much humanizing there, but get my drift?

FWIW, I have had this exact issue w/all of mine and Caleb. Every one of them. He is great w/puppies, and his influence is outstanding, IME, so he spends a great deal of time w/them. Well, he puts up w/a whole lot from the little alligators, and they reach an age, usually between 7-10mos, where he gets a bit less tolerant of rude behavior (and by any standards, Neb's behavior was rude). He corrects them. Do I correct him? Sure. But only if I feel the correction was out of line for the offense. We have talked before about the similarities b/t T and C...had T been raised differently.

First and foremost, I try to prevent the pup from being offensive. If I have failed in this regard, then it's not really fair to correct Caleb for taking care of it himself. I do realize you are in a bit of a different boat w/Teagan (Caleb has never gone overboard w/a correction; he corrects until they quit/submit), but I don't think (gut instinct) that her vs. Neb was the same as her trying to disembowel that other dog. But, you have seen that, and any aggression from her toward another dog is going to cause you to panic. I get that. I really do. I just think she was correcting him, and can say w/99% certainty she was not going to kill him.

Be more aware of Neb's behavior, and move on. It wasn't THAT bad;-)

thanks guys.

i think that you all are right - teagan was correcting him, not attacking him. i've seen her attack, and she's more than capable in that regard - if she'd wanted to hurt him, she would've. jenni, you're absolutely right, b/c of her history, i did panic a wee bit....

angela, i agree with respect to correcting neb. he also got put back in his crate and when i did the 'positive time' out together and he'd bound towards her i'd very sternly tell him to sit and not let him go over to her except when he was totally calm. which isn't the same thing as correcting him, i know.

absolutely, i want teagan to know i will be the one to correct neb. kathy, what you've said about not removing makes sense.

jenni, what you're saying about her feeling like she has a stake in him, in raising him - i could see that. i wasn't going to let them play together when he was young, b/c of how strong her prey drive is, but she'd lie in front of his crate all day, and from the start she was so tolerant - he'd be hanging off her ear and she'd have this expression of absolute bliss on her face. i've also felt that aside from her dog/prey aggression, she has a lot of really good things about her - she's a happy dog, she's confident, she's very environmentally stable - i don't take her and neb out together a lot unless we're hiking or in the woods, b/c i don't want him to see/model any 'i wanna kill that dog' behaviour, but i have allowed her to sort of be a model for him in a lot of ways, so.

thank you all, i feel a lot better. i will be more careful of them but hopefully with strict supervision they can still play wrestle, as they both love it, and luc's not very good at it by a long stretch....

eta: i've wondered when the 'puppy free pass' period would end....guess i know now! i figured when he started humping her (which like i said, i've not allowed) that we'd be moving into a different period....

and i've been giving teagan crazy spoils since i got home, not that she doesn't know how much i love her, but just cause she does deserve it.

It's easy to panic once you've seen that. I have way overreacted a few times after a potentially deadly situation. Have a glass of wine.