New 14 Week Old Shelter Pup..need Advice Please.

[tez]

Its very early days...day 1 in fact but I thought I should nip this in the bud straight away.

Gus, our new 14 week old pup that we adopted from a shelter came home last night and met our 14 month old dog, Jane today. They got on very well in all aspects except when Gus was near one of the Humans in this house. If Jane comes up to us he gets very possessive and starts growling and snapping at her.

Now we do understand that he is brand new to his new family and was in the shelter for 3 weeks so he is very needy of human contact but we obviously can't excuse this sort of behaviour. Our strategy is to say a strong 'UH' which he seems to respond to and to walk away from him. On one occasion, I put him in time-out for a few minutes. We are also mostly ignoring him and just having him around us as we go about our day. If he gets attention, he has to earn it by sitting. He is also being taught to wait to eat. He inhales his food so I have been giving him small amounts and he has to sit and wait until I say OK. I do this 3 or 4 times during his meal so he dosen't inhale all his dinner in a nano-second.

Are we doing the right thing or are there better strategies to use to help settle this cute young boy and ease the anxiety he seems to be feeling.

[tlc]

Hey Tez, I had been keeping an eye on this thread as I have also had a similar problem in the past with my youngest boy. I think for the time being till your new pup settles in, keep doing what your doing and see if it continues. If it does you may need a different approach to correct the problem.

[corvus]

Sounds like you're doing the right thing to me.

Is it just me that thinks that sounds pretty full on for a 14 week old puppy, though?? I have an 11 month old dog that tried that on at 9 weeks and he's a handful, but even so, when he did try it on it was little more than a growl and a rush. Since then he has discovered that some dogs bite back and is more apt to do a submissive crawl than an aggressive snap.

If I were you, I'd be sticking closely to NILIF and keeping an eye on things. There was a puppy in my older dog's puppy class that was picking fights from the word go and she was a bully breed of some type. I guess some dogs can have sort of aggressive personalities.

[wuffles]

Sounds like you're doing the right thing to me, too We have had some growls amongst dogs but walking away from both of them has worked after a few days. No pushing in for pats is allowed at our place, the one doing the pushing gets ignored.

Maybe try some exercises that teach him that good things happen when Jane is around you... for example having them both next to you and treating them alternately. Giving Jane a pat, then giving him a treat/pat if he acts calmly.

[tez]

Thanks for the advise everyone! We are definitley doing NILIF with him but I may have been alittle hasty with my judgement as he was great today...much more relaxed than yesterday and no problems with Jane.

Being his first day with us, he was probably mighty scared and unsure. Not really making excuses, its just that after seeing him today, it has become obvious that he was more stressed yesterday. Thats part of the problem I think...we don't really know him yet and he dosen't know us. He is learning really fast and we are very consistent with the rules even though it just about kills me not to let him jump up on the couch next to me.

And he does have to live with Jane. My sweet beautiful girl is pretty full-on, much more puppy-like than the puppy!