German Shepherd Puppy Intro To Adult Husky

[kellynash]

Hi all,

I just got my beautiful 8 week old German Shepherd puppy and have some concerns about whether his introduction to my housemate's 6 year old female husky is going well. They have supervised play sessions at the moment where the husky tries to herd him and prevent him from being able to get back to me but also sometimes gets quite rough and tips him over, mouths his back and head, growls and paws at him. Is this normal play or not? I don't want him growing up fearful and/or playing roughly/aggressively with other animals. He's now also a bit hesitant about walking past her in small spaces (e.g. doorways).

I'm also a little worried about leaving him in the backyard with the husky next week when i return to work - should i organise for part of the yard to be fenced off til i'm more confident he won't get hurt while i'm out?? (am i being an overly nervous first-time puppy owner??)

If anyone could offer some advice I would be very grateful.

Thanks

[SammyZ]

This is my concern about getting a puppy with my current girl. She is uber dominant and I wouldn't want a puppy being negatively impacted by this so I am holding off. I have always assumed that in their very early days the interaction/socialisation they have with other dogs is so important so I would probably be stepping in very quick before it gets rough and keeping them seperated or carefully supervised until they both learn how to interact appropriately. You seem to be concerned about their interaction and if I were you I would go with my gut and would not be leaving them together at this stage. Will wait for some more experienced trainers/dog and puppy owners and I will be very interested to see what they say.

Congrats on the new pup too - pics are mandatory!

Bec.

Edited September 30, 2008 by becboo

[kellynash]

This is my concern about getting a puppy with my current girl. She is uber dominant and I wouldn't want a puppy being negatively impacted by this so I am holding off. I have always assumed that in their very early days the interaction/socialisation they have with other dogs is so important so I would probably be stepping in very quick before it gets rough and keeping them seperated or carefully supervised until they both learn how to interact appropriately. You seem to be concerned about their interaction and if I were you I would go with my gut and would not be leaving them together at this stage. Will wait for some more experienced trainers/dog and puppy owners and I will be very interested to see what they say.

Congrats on the new pup too - pics are mandatory!

Bec.

Thanks for that - he's going to puppy pre-school so hopefully i can begin to correct any bad behaviour on his behalf (my poor training skills). I'd be interested in hearing some of the professional trainers etc too. I think i will build a temporary run - if it does nothing other than appease my mind while at work then it will have accomplished a lot.

Will upload photos soon :nahnah:

[Flaves]

I would advise you to set up a run for your pup

A large dog with a small pup is a disaster waiting to happen

Accidents occur and injuries happen.

I set up part of my yard so my gsd pup could go into it when i went to work

]It worked well as they could play when i was at home but not when i was not around to supervise.

A suggestion only

[huski]

Your husky exhibits the exact same behaviour my husky does when he meets pups. He is a dominant bully with dogs he doesn't know.

When we got our beagle as an eight week old pup, we only had supervised play and any sign of dominance or bullying from Micha and he was given a correction/reprimanded. I knew how to predict his behaviour pretty well - so I was able to see the signs he was going to dominate her and I could step in before anything happened.

What we did was kept them seperated completely unless under supervision, and took it slowly. It only took six weeks before we could leave them together (we did trial leaving them together in small stages i.e. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes etc). Micha is fine once he is familiar with another dog, and he learnt pretty quickly that he wasn't allowed to be rough with Daisy.

[tracylacy]

Hi all,

I just got my beautiful 8 week old German Shepherd puppy and have some concerns about whether his introduction to my housemate's 6 year old female husky is going well. They have supervised play sessions at the moment where the husky tries to herd him and prevent him from being able to get back to me but also sometimes gets quite rough and tips him over, mouths his back and head, growls and paws at him. Is this normal play or not? I don't want him growing up fearful and/or playing roughly/aggressively with other animals. He's now also a bit hesitant about walking past her in small spaces (e.g. doorways).

I'm also a little worried about leaving him in the backyard with the husky next week when i return to work - should i organise for part of the yard to be fenced off til i'm more confident he won't get hurt while i'm out?? (am i being an overly nervous first-time puppy owner??)

If anyone could offer some advice I would be very grateful.

Thanks

Hi there,

This sounds so much like our recent situation. We just got a new Husky puppy and we already had a nearly 4 year old Husky. Unfortunely we thought everything was coming along fine, whilst the older dog was tolerating the new pup he was acting very much like you say your housemate's husky is doing. Everything was not alright and we ended up with a pup with a broken jaw. We later realised thagt our older dog was extremly jealous - we worked it our from his behavour towards the puppy when we were near, compared with their behavour when we stayed back and watched.

So, about 5 weeks later, here we are. They are getting on great, they play fight all the time and are very relaxed together most of the time. Occcassionally the older dog uses his weight and size to let the pup know that he is in charge, but since the incident that caused the broken jaw our older dog has been much more tolerant. We now leave them together alone all the time (when we go to work, at night time they sleep outside together). They have also prgressed to cuddling up to each other when they think that we won't catch their cuteness on camera (and we try, really we do!)

So, in response to your worries. I think that the older husky is clearly trying to show signs of dominance by mouthing at your pup - our older dog was doing this all the time and occassionally still does.

I wouldn't worry too much about the mouthing and tipping over - this is normal dog play - I would keep a very lose eye on the way that the older dog uses his mouth, is it being gentle or does it look like he really wants to bite him. I can tell by my older dogs body language when he is playing and when he is starting to get a bit nasty - at which point I stop the game and make them have time out.

If you think that your pup is getting scared the best thing to do I would think is to separate them but not molly coddle the pup. The pup will have to get used to the older dog and vice versa eventually.

As for leaving them alone when you go to work - I think it would be a good idea to rig up a temp fence to give them space and for piece of mind when you are not there. You will know when they are ready to be left together. If your situation is anything like mine, they probably get on better when you're not right there than when you are (my older dog sometimes really plays up to the fact that I am near, almost like he is saying 'look, I'm the most important, the pup doesn't matter!'

I think my best bot of advice would be to keep an eye on them and try to learn what their behavour means by way of observation. OUr mistake was that we didn't realise there was a problem really, it was only when something bad happened that we managed to work out that there was a problem and that that problem was our older dogs jelousy.

Hope that I have helped :D

[kellynash]

Thanks so much to everyone for the advice!!!!!

I will definitely block off some of the yard for him to play in while i'm at work. They're starting to work themselves out very slowly and hopefully they'll be cuddling up together, best friends in no time. All of the behaviours you have all mentioned are exactly what is happening here so it's very reassuring to hear that in the long run they should be good play mates.

Thanks again

[kellynash]

I have a new problem to deal with now. The dogs were beginning to get along - playing (albeit too rough for my liking) and very occassionally we could get them sitting peacefully in the same room together (ususally when the pup was tired) - but now the adult Husky has injured herself (completely unrelated to the puppy).

As a result we've had to keep them apart from each other for a few days while she recovers - now they seem to have gone backwards - the pup continually barks around the older dog (i assume this is either a fear thing or wanting to play) and the adult dog growls and bares her teeth at the puppy.

The only time i can get them really close without growling or barking is when i am training the puppy - i have started re-training the adult dog at the same time so that they are more occupied with the activity and the food than with each other.

Any advice???? It really worries me that they won't get along and at the rate the puppy is growing he'll be vying for dominance very soon if not already.

[Joshua]

Hopefully time fixes it mate... I know my two guys didn't egt along at first but now they are best mates.. (puppy is 16 weeks)

They will soon sort eachother out IMO...

Good Luck Mate!

Edited October 7, 2008 by Joshua