Joey "attacked" Dora... Advice needed!

[Ginger's Mom]

I would repeat almost everything stated above. It is possible that he thought he was protecting you. You should immediately put him in time out. I do think it will get better once they know each other better. Joey will learn Dora is not a threat to him personally, nor to his place/standing in the household. It is very early in the relationship. They should still have scheduled play time together when you can watch them closely and step in if it gets dangerous (but other than that don't get involved, let them work it out). Make the play periods rather short at this point (10 minutes), a couple of times a day. In addition to that take them for leash walks together outside. Being outside together sniffing around will teach them to do things together without any threat to each other.

Ginger does mouth on Taz. At first it scared him. This past week he realized it was play, and he stood up to her. She loved it; it was a real breakthrough. And they are both older and have had three weeks together. You have more issues to work through than we do. I wish you luck. As chocolatepuppy has said there are people on here who have much more knowledge on behavior and training. I will be interested in what they have to suggest.

[Rachel]

My thoughts are that you seemed to have instinctively handled the situation correctly. Joey needed to know that this type of behavior was unacceptable and would not be tolerated by you, the *Top Dog*.

I'm really not familiar with the little breed dogs and their personalities. I understand because of his size you can't overwhelm him with whatever vocal or physical actions you chose to use, but on the other hand, you also need to clearly convey you are the leader and his behavior was not to be repeated.

As far as the pooping goes, I don't know, it may be a bit of a setback in his housetraining due to his perceived stress of having a new sibling with whom to share his mommy and not being able to rid the premises of her. I guess I would just assume that you have to take all the same precaustions you did with him during his housebreaking.

Unfortunately this is where two dogs becomes more than double the work of one dog. It's the work of dog 1 and the work of dog 2 and then the work of dealing with the entity of the two of them together. Be prepared for utilitizing a good bit of patience and spending lots of time as you work toward this adjustment phase. Unless Joey is one to dig in his heels, it should all work out in due time.

[Giselle]

My thoughts are that you seemed to have instinctively handled the situation correctly. Joey needed to know that this type of behavior was unacceptable and would not be tolerated by you, the *Top Dog*.

Exactly. This sounds like a classic case of resource guarding. In his mind, YOU are his resource. You need to switch the roles and enforce your own benevolent leadership!

I own both small and big dogs, and I don't treat any of them differently. If I tell you Sit, you better sit. I don't care what your size is

In your case, you'd do best enforcing NILIF now and paying a little more attention to how you treat Joey and Dora. Are you paying significantly more attention to Dora than Joey? Joey can be feeling slighted with the new addition, but if you enforce NILIF, Joey should not feel slighted because they then BOTH have to earn your attention. It is not something that he can just take and guard. It is something he has to earn. Do not let toys and treats lay around your house for now. For now, you are the controller of all resources and you will only dole them out when you can supervise.

Don't worry. It is the hardest going from a single dog household to a two-dog household. After the second one, it's pretty smooth sailing from there

A good booklet is: How to be Leader of the Pack and have Your Dog Love You For It by Patricia McConnell