Older Dogs 'telling Off' Puppies

[poochiemama]

Today was our goldie's birthday so we took her and our chocolate lab Charlie to the park and they had an absolute blast, played with heaps of dogs and really enjoyed ourselves. The park started to empty out and we were about to leave when we saw the most adorable chocolate lab puppy and of course went over to see it. Our chocolate lab was so even-tempered and the puppy kept trying to lick his mouth and play with it, and Charlie was very patient. The puppy then tried to play with our goldie and gave our goldie a couple of playbites, and she growled in a 'back off' kind of way. I think she was just telling the puppy off but I worry that this is the first signs of dog aggressiveness? She is usually beautifully tempered and loves dogs; sometimes she gets a bit annoyed when she is on her back and dogs sniff her too much and gives a little growl. What do you guys think?

[whiskedaway]

I would say she was telling the puppy off.

[wuffles]

Completely normal and IMO good behaviour.

[corvus]

Aggressive signals like growling and snapping are normal parts of canine communication. If you don't want to see it, don't put the dog in a situation where they feel a need to communicate their strong dislike of something. Otherwise, it's no big deal. A big deal is if it is inapporpriately strong, like if the dog actually injures another dog.

[tdierikx]

Zeddy does it to my foster puppy regularly - he ignored her once, and got a bit of a snap for his impertinence - now he knows that when she says back off, he backs off... *grin*

I'd say that your girl was behaving just fine if she was being annoyed by an impertinent puppy...

T.

[HeavyPaws]

That's how puppies learn boundaries and how to play properly. Of course if it gets seriously rough and the adult dog is getting too annoyed, separate.

Moon prefers to roll them over with a paw and turn her back to them.