Established Puppy Aggression

Hello Friends,

We have a year and a half old, female boxer lab mix. We rescued her when she was 6 weeks old. She is a a puppy with TONS of energy, and we walk her, and play firisbee with her everyday to give her plenty of exercise.

When she was a couple months old, she atrted dispaying food agression around her food bowl, which we are still currently working on.

My husband and I just recently rescued another puppy. He is 4 month old, male, lab-rottweiller mix. He is a very sweet, mellow baby. The exact opposite of our first puppy! We have him now for about 3 weeks. They play and get along really well. Even have slept together in their crate.

The new male puppy is still training in his crate, while our first pup still remains spoiled...no longer needs her crate, and even sleeps in the bed with us at night.

The issue we are having, is the older puppy is now displaying signs of more aggression towards my husband and myself. Moreso towards myself. Would anyone have any insight as to why this may be happening. We are very loving and affectionate with both of the puppies. We are growing concerend with her becoming more aggressive towards us when we try to pet her or snuggle her. She has not bitten either of us, but snarls and growls, and we feel it may only be a matter of time before this progresses.

Any insight or advice would GREATLY be appareciated. Thanks in advance!

Is she spayed? Just a preliminary question.

You need to think about not allowing her on the bed, and taking some obedience classes with the older pup. With the change in situation, it sounds like she is trying to become the "top dog" so to speak, and she need reinforcement that you and your husband are indeed in charge. She's also about at that "teenager" stage where she'd likely be challenging authority anyway.

Thank you for your reply, Karen.

Yes..Ayla is spayed. We are most definitely going to take them both to training classes. It was interesting how I could only find info on the older dog showing aggression to the new puppy, but not to the owners. I am thinking that Beau and Ayla may have already established that he is alpha.(as he is a rottweiller mix) and will def grow bigger than she. So, perhaps Ayla is trying to re-establish herself in the pack order. AND in that lil defiant stage!

This was indeed helpful!! Thanks again, Karin!

Alpha has nothing to do with the size of the dog, and if he's so laid-back, he may not ever bother to challenge her for it. But you should be the leader, in any case! If her food aggression continues, you may need to resort to the NILIF method - "nothing in life is free" which seems extreme, but can really help. (Do a search for it here, it has been discussed many times.)

I didn't know that it was called NILIF, but that is really how we have been training Ayla. Although, I can see how being really consistent with it will make all the difference. It's feels like almost one unconcious move on our part can declare a huge step backwards, if we are not totally consistent with this training. Which seems really easy to do....to not realize we may be reinforcing negative behavior. Thanks Karen! =)