Need help with clashing personalities....

[Goochina & Goochissimo]

Hi All. I haven't been around in a while.

Here's my problem. I have 2 dalmatians. Odie is about 4. He was rescued from a home where he was no longer wanted in Dec. 2000. He has been with us since. He was the perfect, loving dog... a little bit dopey and sometimes stubborn, but always so gentle and loving. He was never one for tricks, all he wants in life is to be loved and cuddled. He was never aggressive, friendly with other dogs, and if challenged by a poodle he'd take of running.

In April 2002 we adopted Scout, a dalmatian puppy. Scout is completely deaf, and we read up on the challenges that we would face. We decided to take on the task of making him a perfectly loving dog. Scout has been a wonder dog from the beginning. He has never demonstrated any signs of aggression, which was a concern with a deaf dog. He is very rarely startled, and never responds with aggression. He has learned many tricks and hand commands, and he reads us very well without hearing. We've taught him to sit, stay, come, fetch, roll over, shake, beg, and ... of course... "no". He is the opposite of Odie... doesn't want to cuddle much, but eager to please you with tricks and commands.

In the last few months as Scout has matured, there has been some problems between them. I thought they would bond to each other -- dogs are pack animals, right? Scout seems more than willing, but Odie refuses. Odie is often caught nipping at him, or threatening him. We have to sit with them while they eat their food, because even though they have the exact same thing in two identical bowls, Odie will fight over the food. We put their bowls on opposite ends of the yard, and Odie will sneak over (if we turn our backs for a second) and bite Scout, trying to steal his food.

Odie appears to be jealous, and I'm not sure how to address this with a dog. We've always treated them very fairly. When Scout was getting treats for learning new tricks, Odie was sitting by collecting treats for doing the two tricks he does actually know (sit and shake). Everything has been evenly distributed. Yet if we give them each a bone or chew toy, Odie will fight to steal them both!

Odie was not an "only child" dog in his previous home, and we previously had a cat in our home with no problems of aggression or jealousy.

Any ideas as to why he is clashing with Scout? I've given it time and patience, but what can I do to help? FYI he has never really injured Scout. He growls, barks, and bites him, but never enough to draw blood or anything, and Scout never fights back. Scout yelps and cries and looks to us for help, I think his feelings are hurt more than anything.

[aly]

This is a very common thing actually. The first dog may accept a puppy, but problems do develop sometimes once the puppy starts maturing, especially if the puppy decides he wants to take over and be 'top dog'. It doesn't sound like that is what Scout is doing though, but Odie still may feel threatened now that Scout is closer in size and they are the same gender. Are they both neutered? If not, this would be the first thing I would do.

When feeding, I would give Odie like 4 bowls of food. You can still feed him the same amount, just split it into many bowls. This may help that problem.

Sometimes you just can't treat dogs equally. With human children, it is ideal to treat them equally, but dogs live in a hierarchy and some of them want to be higher than others in the pack. Make sure all the humans in your house remain at the top, but then treat Odie like he's higher rank than Scout. Give him treats and pets first, feed him first, give him more treats, let him go through doors first, etc. Only do this though if Scout is okay with it. It sounds like he will be.

I really think Odie is just confused about the rankings and wants to be a higher rank than Scout. Since they are treated equally, he's doing things like growling and biting to try to tell Scout he's higher ranking.

Try it out for awhile and see if it works. I wish you the best of luck!

**Forgot to put this in:
There may be only certain things that Odie cares about. He might be fine with Scout going out the door first but if he values treats, you may need to make sure he always gets those first. Its a big game of knowing your dogs and figuring what they each value the most, and which situations they are okay with the other dog being treated as alpha.

[Goochina & Goochissimo]

Thanks for the great advice Aly. I'll definitely try that. I really hadn't thought about it that way. Makes sense!

[micki76]

Excellent advice!! We had a few problems with Millie and Chester at 1st. But when we started doing things with Chester 1st, they got along so much better. He still "attacks" her occasionally, but that's just sometimes what dog do. It looks and sounds horrible, but no one actually ever touches anyone else, and as the alpha, I always stop it before it gets too loud.