Pepe
Why would an older dog suddenly become hostile after a new puppy arrived in the house?
Their older dog and the new puppy can’t be together.
Frenchie Pepe, now four years old, is not getting on with the new puppy.
This isn’t so surprising seeing as he doesn’t like dogs in general. The only dog he’s okay with is their Shitzu, Daisy, who is now eleven years old and was already in the household before Pepe arrived as a puppy himself.
Pepe was fine until he had a heart operation that has left him unable to go for walks. He’s become increasingly hostile to dogs on the few occasions he has been out. He spends hours each day chasing them away from his house from an upstairs window by barking.
And into this they bring the older dog a new puppy – Zeeva.
Not a good lesson from the older dog for a puppy.
Poor little Zeeva is a Boston Terrier now twelve weeks old. She is getting some very negative behaviour from both older dogs.
Older Daisy understandably just wants to be left alone and shows her teeth whenever Zeeva is close. Pepe gets fierce with her, jumps on her and pins her down by the neck.
This sort of thing is likely to lead to Zeeva herself becoming a dog that doesn’t trust other dogs.
So their owner’s job is to to ‘protect’ their older dogs. Currently the puppy was now mostly kept the other side of a closed door.
It’s just such a shame that the older dog and new puppy have to be kept apart.
Jealous.
It’s an active household. People come and go all the time and three generations of family members live there including children. Pepe is very chilled with humans. They are a lovely family all working together for the best for their three dogs and the children have been taught to treat them with respect which is wonderful to see.
A problem for Pepe is that puppy Zeeva usurps his position on the lady’s lap in the evening! This is the only way they can have Zeeva in the same room as Pepe.
Zeeva
Jealousy is a horrible feeling and dogs I’m sure feel it too. It can’t help Pepe’s antagonism towards Zeeva.
My advice now is if Pepe comes to the lady and Zeeva is on her lap, she will try either feeding him to build up some good associations or she will pass Zeeva to someone else.
Lowering stress levels
The first job is to make Pepe as ‘fit’ as possible for the job – lowering his stress levels, optimising his diet and giving his life more enrichment.
Unable to go for walks, his days lack interest and enrichment despite having so many humans around him. He needs to sniff, do dog things and see the wider world.
They will now be taking him out the front on a longish lead and allow him to watch the world go by. This will be an opportunity to sniff where other dogs have peed. They can begin to change his behaviour towards passing dogs near the escape bolthole of an open front door.
For a dog that does very little he undoubtedly eats too much and some of it is the wrong stuff for the best mental state. He can now start working for more nutritious food by foraging for it around the garden or getting it from a Kong Wobbler.
Playing safe and preventing further rehearsal.
So, work involves getting Pepe to feel better about dogs in general and most particularly to ‘like’ Zeeva. We have a plan that can be modified if necessary as we go along.
The most important thing when you have an older dog showing aggression towards a puppy is to play safe. In every way to prevent further rehearsal.
It’s harder to come back from things once they have happened as they are likely to happen again.
The three dogs had been out together briefly when supervised in the garden, but now Zeeva will be on lead. Currently they are relying upon calling her to them but that’s risky. With no leash they have no reliable control.
Many people would have the older dog on lead, but I feel it should be the puppy. She is the one, after all, who needs to be prevented from annoying the older dogs and the one who they may need to scoop up quickly.
For a few days they will keep bars of the dog gate or puppy pen between the Zeeva and Pepe. They had been shutting the door but this removes any safe, supervised opportunity for them to get to know each other.
Older dog and new puppy with bars between them.
Sitting down on the floor with the older dog and with the new puppy in the puppy pen, they will do two things, using a clicker.
They will reinforce Pepe for looking towards the puppy in a soft or interested way – with chicken. If he’s ‘eyeballing’ in a harder kind of way (they understand!) they will wait for Pepe to look away briefly and immediately reinforce. To begin with they may need to make a small distracting sound to achieve this.
Daisy
Zeeva should be fed also in order to feel Pepe isn’t so bad after all.
We humans need to keep ourselves out of the picture in these situations. It’s about the dogs, their emotions and the food. If we bombard them with words it confuses things.
The time should come when they don’t need bars between them. With Keeva on lead and the other two dogs loose, they can be together in the sitting room. It would be best when puppy Keeva is tired! They need two people, one to hold the lead and the other to work on Pepe.
Who knows how long it will take before all three dogs to be freely together? I’m sure they will get there if they take it slowly enough and help Pepe in a positive way, never scolding.
A photo received about five weeks later
