Although I aggree with most of the comments regarding the problems dominant dogs can be, I question whether one can determine if a dog is dominant in a few minutes of watching the largest female push the smaller pups around.

I'd venture that 9 times out of 10 it is always the larger pups in the litter that physcially push the other pups around. This behavior, in and of itself, rarely has any influence on their later social interactions with other dogs or with people.

I'd look more to the genetic factor before passing off a puppy as "dominant", i.e. looking to the parents and grandparents for those behaviors. In every litter there are going to be a few pups that manage to push others around, but that goes for the most submissive and pathetic litter on the planet as well as the most dominant rank one.

True dominance is pretty rare in most dogs, more often what is called "dominance" is actually permissiveness on the part of the owner. Permissiveness coupled with poor handling, bad training, misuse of compulsion, and a lack of understanding of behavior is the cause of "dominance" in most cases.

Just about ANY dog on the planet will learn to take advantage of their situations. Just about any dog on the planet will react poorly in the wrong situations with the wrong owner/handler.

Good point Vancamp. Here are some other traits that makes me think this puppy will be a handful, for her.

By the way she bought the puppy, the puppy entered the house, unusally clam just wanted to stay close occassionally investigating noises and movement. The Cat came in the room, it was met by the puppy running up to it and sniffing them barking. Sorta play bowing.

The cat lean away and jumped over puppy's head all that started a chase the puppy spun around and went after the much bigger cat. Ingrid grabbed the cat, and took it outside. Smiling at the 8 week old puppy.

In the mirror as it ran by chasing the knotted towel, she spotted her image, stopped back up did the side to side head thing, shooks its head approached barking, sniff its imaged jump back and barked again. Cute as a button, I moved the now unknotted towel in front of her and she forgot about the image and chased the towel.

At 8 weeks away from its pack for the 1st time, I found this unusually clam and bold. I don't think the puppy is scared but confrontational wanting to play with anything and everybody, its way by mouthing.

Now placed in its crate she whines, stands and paws at the door. She does not like being left alone, with inaminate toys. This is pretty common with puppies for the 1st couple of weeks

I got her dragging a leash already, while ouside her crate she acts as if its not even there only wanting to stay close to you.

Am I going too fast? With leash and towel play.

Input please...

Nothing there says dominance to me.

Vancamp
Dominance is probably hard to see OR may not exist in a 8-9 week old puppy, the type that you are talking about. I guess I should have put this in the training Puppies section.

Puppy selection was my main conern.

I failed here because She bought the alpha female, she is a pretty cute puppy. She is mouthing though. I showed Ingrid, how to use the distract and praise method for controlling puppy mouthing. This puppy is the ankle bitting munckins that I've seen in a while. A sruff shake only makes her go after the other ankle, it took three or four to hault this action. Along with the praise and the nifty distraction towel.

This past weekend her cousin stopped by to visited and brought her two boys approximately 3.5 & 4.5 yrs. Old. They just loved the puppy but if she got too close they started running and the puppy would chase, catch and drag down the 3 yr old, pulling down his pants. The puppy couldn’t often catch the 4 yr. old but when she did leg bites and pulling no growling. I introduced the distraction towle the boys were able to play with the puppy witout being nipped, chased or drugged down. This bought another problem with the 3yr old wanting to win, the towel for himself. And fighting between the boys to play with the puppy. The puppy was crated after awhile and the boys watched TV.

The three had a great time. I just didn’t like seeing the puppy chasing the boys, or the boys pulling the puppy off its feet with the towel. I tried to mention it in between two women talking. I got, nowhere, until a kid screamed then they just pulled the puppy off and they started playing again. Surprisingly no scratches were visible and they all were having fun.
Sometimes the puppy would release the leg and just stand over the child until boy tried to get up.

The kids wanted to take the puppy home. I suggested that she bond with the dog first. She was going to let them until I said that. Later that evening Ingrid was very proud of her puppy as it slept wore out from play.

I gave her a list of things not to do. Like don’t let the puppy sleep in her bed. Don’t feed it from your plate. Don’t give it treats all the time, Schedule feeding and pick it up if she does not finish. Control mouthing. And hard as it may be, do not encourage the type play we just witness. Use the towel or a toy.

I explained that the puppy has pretty good prey drive for an 8-9 weeks old and may be pretty hard. She was swatted, pushed off, ran over, yelped only once. She would give chase all the way to the placing her fore paws on top of the sofa that the kids jumped up on for safety. The only time she growled was when one of the little ones stepped on her tail. She snap at him and went on to something else. The child was told not to do that again, it never happened again.

Mental Note to myself: Never do this again. Train Woman, Children and Puppy until Pro takes over Puppy, at 12 weeks. Work with owner and other people in the puppy’s life.

I don’t want to scare anybody We are going to do our best to discourage the child chasing incident even though it was funny and they all had fun.

Am I right about this, will the puppy grow up and associate this chasing with proper behavior? Or is it just the pack playing rough.

Come on Pro trainer day 3, 14 hours 6 minutes, 46 seconds and counting.

This woman sounds exceedingly frustrating <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> ... she also sounds like people i've dealt with before in puppy training. They dont think things out ... they just do it because its cute, or it looks good, or they can show off with it :rolleyes: ... and wanting to let the kids take the puppy home so soon (or at all!!!) she's treating it like a posession and not a baby. I'd get a hold of the name of the trainer and have a chat to him before she hits him, and keep an eye on the dog. I have a feeling that despite everyones advice she will do what she wants and turn a promising pup into a problem dog. I know its hard because of her relation to the boss, but think of the dog ... alternatively nick it and get her a pomeranian as a get better gift <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> problem solvered hehehehe

She stated that she doesn't want a Poddle or a Pomerinana she wants a big strong dog. Thats people respect and take note of.

I've told her of some of the GSD, Boxer, Dobies and Rotties that are couch potatoes and though they look like a GSD they act like a toy poodle or toy dog.

A dog is what you make it. Just like life.