Suggestions, please!!!

[robinh]

You all know I recently adopted a neutered bichon from a friend who couldn't keep him. I already have 3 spayed females and an unaltered male. Kirby is great with the unaltered male, Max and the oldest female, Carly. He knows they are in charge and doesn't mess with them.

My problem is with the two smallest females; Molly, yorkshire terrier and Muffin, dachshund. He constantly wants to wrestle and/or chase them. He does know not to bite. They are both high energy dogs, but he is soooo energetic that he wears them out. I know part of it is determining who is the dominant one, but he's got both Molly and Muffin afraid of him at times. I can't always hold the girls to protect them.

Right now he is in his cage in the other room. When he wouldn't stop picking on Muffin, after being told stop he got a time out in the cage. Can you give me some suggestions?

Thanks!!

[stacwase]

My shepherd/rottweiler mix, Max, is rather dominant. We got him about 4 months ago, and I was having some problems. The folks here on Pet Talk gave me tons of great advice. One thing I heard over and over was that the dogs have to work things out on their own, and in time they should do that. If you feel he's endangering your other dogs, then you should separate them. However, if he's just annoying them then I feel you'd be best to let them alone and they'll get the pecking order sorted out.

Max did bite Jake during their sorting out period, and we had a rather expensive trip to the vet. I made the mistake of leaving out a rawhide bone, which led to the bite. It's not a good idea to leave out any toys or food that they can fight over, and to keep them separated when they eat. However, Jake immediately accepted his new role and since then they've gotten along very well.

Good luck!

[mga416]

Hi, you replied to my question on dachshunds. I didn't know you had a yorkie too. I do, too. How do they get on? Actually, I have the same problem with my doxie: Peti and the yorkie: Angus. Angus is 10yrs old and we just got Peti, he is 4months now. Peti runs around Angus all the time. (Angus is not nuetered and we caught him marking the house) He does not like the dachshund at all. What I do is give them seperate rooms to have time away. Peti is trained now. He was in a crate until just recently. That helped but now I have put it away and he has the run of the place too. I tried to give each their own space because Peti wants to Play, play play! I seperate them with their own "rooms". Angus gets his usual(my room) and Peti gets the office room.Of course, he wants my room, too, so I give him equal time. As well, I don't let them outside at the same time because Peti will run Angus crazy and he needs his "time alone"! Actually, at 10 yrs, Angus acts like an old man. My parents live next door; they are 75, he likes to stay over there a lot. It is hard to introduce new dogs into a house. I thought that was only with cats but it seems dogs have their ways too!!!

[robinh]

My yorkie was driving the old dachshund crazy, so that's the reason we got the new dachshund. It would give Molly someone to play with. At that time, we weren't expecting to get Kirby (bichon). Molly and Muffin (new dachshund) seem to have set up a system where when it's just the two of them they play really well together. But add Kirby and it's him driving one of them crazy or he teams up with one of them against the other - it gets really crazy at times.