Poodleroni

Okay, so Shadow turned 2 in June and Charlie will be 5 months old on the 5th of Sept. Charlie's greatest pasttime is trying to pretend he's Tarzan swinging from Shadow's ears and taking every toy Shadow shows interest in away from him. Shadow lets him take the toys away without putting up a fight, but just stares after said toy longingly. We've heard that we should intervene and that we should let them work it out... By the way, Shadow is a standard and Charlie is a mini (who is already at 9 lbs). If anyone out there has been in a similar situation, feel free to give advice. We long for peaceful evenings...

Raiko

In my experience (which is with only bordercollies, shepards, and akitas) when one dog beats up on the other dog excessivly, you as alpha need to step in and punish the other dog for hurthing your spoo. aka put him on time out or pop on his leash.

To help establish who is ontop of who feed,praise, pet the higher dog first then go to the other dog. if the subordinate dog tries to get in on the praise while you are working with the higher ranked dog shove him away without saying anything.

that has always worked for me, but just make sure you are putting the dog who is really higher first, dont decide that you wantt your spoo to be higher up in rank and try putting him first, this will instigate more violence.

jester's mom

I would intervene and let Charlie know that there is ranking order and he doesn't run the house. When he goes to take a toy from your Shadow, tell him "no, leave it" and step between him and Shadow and make him move away. If he gets the toy, walk up to him and tell him to "leave it" and act dominant but not mean and if he tries to go somewhere else with the toy, follow him and stand over him until he drops the toy, thus letting you know that he knows you are alfa. Then give the toy back to Shadow. It will take a few times for Charlie to get the message, but he should pick up on what you are doing fairly quickly. It won't take long before you can just say quietly to him "Charlie, leave it" when you see him going to take a toy or anything else he shouldn't be doing and he will just turn away and mind his business.

Also, he should be taught that he cannot hang off of any part of Shadow. If Charlie wants to play and they are rough housing together and enjoying themselves (which means both are enjoying themselves) and it is ok with you, then nothing need be said. If Shadow doesn't want to play, or if Charlie is getting overly rough, then the same thing applies. Force yourself between Charlie and Shadow and tell Charlie to "leave it" firmly. If he tries to go around you to get at Shadow, move around to block him. He will get the message what you are trying to do and should give it up and go find something else to do. What would be good is, when he does leave the situation alone, whether it be taking the toy or hanging off of a part of Shadow, and he walks away, offer him a treat and or a chew toy to play with.

My spoo, Grace, has a fetish with cats. She does not try to harm them, she does not try to bite them, but she has a thing about following them around the house or just starring at them. I had to teach her the "leave it" command and now, if she starts to stare at the cat, I just say "Grace, leave it" very quietly and she will look away immediately, then come up to me for a pat, then I tell her to go lie down and she does. It took a few weeks of my repeating the command, when the situation arose, (at first she would look away, or move away, from the cat for 3 minutes and then go back) so I had to repeat the process till she understood that I meant that "leave it" means all the time, not just for 5 minutes.

Best of luck with your training. With persistence and patience you will get them to be fine together.