I have an 8 month old lab, a 4 year old lab, and a 2 1/2 year old great dane. I sometimes let them play outside all together with 4 different toys (one for each +1) supervised by me. My 4 year old retrieves for me, and my great dane like to just lie down and chew on a toy. My puppy will do one of two things: mess with my great dane by playing tug with him etc..., or she'll chase my other lab and nip at him while he retrieves. My older lab mostly ignores her, and she doesn't bite him hard.

Avis (the puppy) often does this in general when with the other dogs when I'm around and interacting with them. My question is, is Avis displaying dominant behavior or is it just play. As pack leader I don't want her setting the rules for dog-dog aggression. Should I be stopping her from doing this, or is the fact that she doesn't bite hard a sign of play? I've decided to play with them separately more than together to avoid this, but I'd like to know what the behavior means.

Thanks!

 Quote: Peter Meaden

My older lab mostly ignores her, and she doesn't bite him hard.

This is the biggest problem I see. My dogs do not bite one another at all. Period. If they do, they don't go out together. End of story. I'd separate them until you get a better obedience response from BOTH dogs. And, for the record, I sometimes don't allow my pups to be out at the same time for over a year. They annoy the older dogs, and it is not fair to them.

Thanks Cameron. This is a mistake I've made for a while now, and I can see it causing problems. This is the first time I've heard this information and I think this will make a big difference in the way my dogs and I relate. Before asking these questions I already started doing most everything with each of my dogs separately. It just seems to be easier and better for the dogs.

I've gotten the advice a couple times on this forum about not putting dogs in situations where you'll have to deal with unwanted behavior and I'm starting to get it. The only time you expose them to a situation where they will do something wrong is when you are doing the distraction phase of training. I'm still curious about how this applies to dogs that show aggression towards other dogs.

My puppy has started to show aggression towards other dogs on walks. I correct her for it if I can't distract her with food. Is it better to just avoid other dogs? How do I solve this problem so that we can be out in public without her going nuts over another dog?

It's just play. Dogs bite each other. Especially pups. I separate pups from adults till about 10-12 months old, and a lot of the time after that too just because it's easier when you have 4 high energy dogs. One of my dogs is dog aggressive to males, so I don't subject him to the torment of puppies anyway.

OB should always be done separately, as should playing with toys/fetch etc. The only time I play fetch with 2 dogs out is when I am distraction proofing one of the dogs that is in a down. It's unfair to the slower dog if the quicker dog snatches up the ball before he gets to it. At 8 months old I do not expect the kind of obedience that would control the dog under that type of distraction at all.

There is nothing "wrong" with dogs biting each other when they play. Thats what they do. If the pup is annoying the older dogs then take the pup out of the equation. Puppies are incredibly annoying. If it is something that personally bothers you then sure, it certainly is an option, you can condition the dogs to not bite each other. But, it isn't a necessity, or something you have been doing "wrong," nor is it a problem per se. It's more about the owners than it is about the dogs. In the case of working dogs, I don't like males dominating other males, but that's why you separate. Some people just can't stand the chaos.

I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about "things kids say that you could imagine your dogs saying if they could talk." One of my nieces was hitting my other niece the other day and kept saying "did that hurt?" as her punches increased intensity and the older niece was cringing, yet still saying "no."

I laughed, because I could totally imagine my dog Lyka saying that to Cujo when she hangs onto the fur around his neck. However annoying she may be, they have a great relationship, and Cujo is more than capable of giving the body language to Lyka that would make her leave him alone. Older dogs figure these things out themselves, they communicate with each other and humans generally misinterpret it. What a human might see as "one dog annoying the other," can be something entirely different from the dogs perspective.

Puppies on the other hand never know when to stop and are annoying as heck. However, separation of puppies to adults hasn't got all that much to do with how annoying a puppy is. The reason puppies (IMO) should be separated from other dogs is so they develop their relationship with the human handler, and don't look to the other dogs for bonding. You want the primary person in the pups life to be you, not the other dog. A friend of mine who raised a GSD pup with an older female commented that, if he is at a dog trial and the younger dog knows the older dog is around somewhere, he will be more interested in where the other dog went rather than following the handlers direction. That is a perfect example of what can happen.

Back to the puppy biting real quick. Once the pup is older and understands OB properly, my basic requirement for dogs running together is that when I say "come" they need to knock off whatever they are doing and come to me. I wouldn't expect that level of OB from a puppy at 8 months old, but down the line when the OB is solid and distractions have been covered.

I do however step in if a dog is bullying another dog, by which I mean pinning him down and not letting him get up type stuff. But generally my dogs can hold their own. I also don't pair dogs that I don't think get along well together. Yasko and Lyka, or any male with Cujo for example. There is a difference between play, and one dog getting constantly trounced by the other dog.

Interestingly, most dogs seem to stop with the biting when they are given a big open field to run in. More focus goes into covering ground with less need for a dog to slow down and let them start fighting with each other. It's when the dog slows down for a turn and the other dog catches up that running turns into biting in a "CAUGHT YA!" kinda way.

Dogs will dominate each other and establish rank one way or another, whether it's through biting or other means. It's going to happen, and it has to in order to have a successful relationship within the pack. The most you can do is to limit how out of hand it gets.

The dog aggression thing has been covered many times, I'll let you search around the forum for that one

Thanks Mike! I was hoping you'd weigh in on this. I've read other posts you've written on this subject including one of my own. Thank you for elaborating. I've been learning so much here that I'm having to change a lot about how I handle my dogs. Understanding the details and why I'm doing something makes the process more effective.

P.S. I realized after I wrote the aggression question that there is tons of info on that. She's actually been stopping that quickly with the good direction I get from this site.