My older dog is biting my new puppy.

[LisaDwyer]

I have a 6yo male German Shepard and we got a new puppy because our eldest dog died 6 weeks ago and he was very lonely. Our new pup is also a male and a Jack Russell. Our oldest dog was fine with the pup for the first few days but yesterday he bit him. We brought him to the vet and luckily he will be ok, but today again he tried to bite the pup. What can I do to stop this? Our German Shepard is obviously much bigger than our pup. Please help!

[Adrienne]

Hi there,

Welcome to the forums.

To  better assist you, I would need some more information.

How old is this new puppy?

What was the puppy doing exactly when the bite accidents have occurred? What was your German shepherd doing?

Can you please describe more in detail both bite incidents? 

Did the first bite break the skin? If there was an injury can you describe it? Bleeding, needing stitches, 

What breed/age was the dog that passed 6 weeks ago? So sorry for your loss!

Thanks!

Adrienne

[LisaDwyer]

20 hours ago, LisaDwyer said:

I have a 6yo male German Shepard and we got a new puppy because our eldest dog died 6 weeks ago and he was very lonely. Our new pup is also a male and a Jack Russell. Our oldest dog was fine with the pup for the first few days but yesterday he bit him. We brought him to the vet and luckily he will be ok, but today again he tried to bite the pup. What can I do to stop this? Our German Shepard is obviously much bigger than our pup. Please help!

Our new pup is 9 weeks old.

My daughter threw out a bit of chicken for our German Shepard he had just finished eating it, and we put the pup out with him. The pup went over to our dog and Monty bit him. We didn’t actually see exactly what happened as my daughter turned her back but we heard the yelping from the pup and knew something had happened.

I was rubbing the German Shepard and the pup walked over my dog jumped off the sofa and snapped at him. He didn’t physically bite him this time. I think there was a bowl of noodles on the table near them. Which might have caused the issue I am not sure. For the first few days of having the pup, our German Shepard got on so well with the pup, he was always licking him and followed him around everywhere, I don’t know where everything went wrong.

The first bite broke the skin, it bleed a tiny bit and we brought him to the vet. It was on the pups neck. No stitches needed just medication. We have to bring him back tomorrow for a check up. The German Shepard knew he did wrong straight away and started licking him in both instances, still we can’t let this behaviour happen it is so dangerous for the pup.

Rusty was a mongrel terrier that passed away 6 weeks ago. She was a small/medium sized dog and we had her before we had our German Shepard. She came as a stray 8 years ago and the vet estimated her to be around 13 when she died. She definitely ruled the roost and was in charge of both of them.

Thank you for your response!

[Adrienne]

Thank you for the additional details, they are very helpful!

If you got this new puppy at 9 weeks, I am assuming you had him for about a week. It's always somewhat stressful for older dogs to get adjusted to changes, and in this case, we have the fact that you lost your other dogs just 6 weeks ago and now a new boisterous puppy has been welcomed into the home. Puppies are perceived quite differently from adult dogs. 

This is because puppies are socially illiterate beings, in other words, they tend to cross boundaries and do things that adult and older dogs won't normally do. For sake of comparison, it's like a toddler who acts a bit like a brat when grandma comes over, pulling her skirt, yelling in her face and maybe even driving her nuts. 

Some adult dogs can make great teachers, in telling puppies what they shouldn't do. These adult teacher dogs may growl, snap or gently bite the pup to correct them, and in an ideal situation, the puppy isn't harmed and not impacted too much emotionally (doesn't appear traumatized, or fearful of the adult dog, but gets the message). In general, we expect adult dogs  to grant a so called "puppy license" to puppies under five months old (in other words,  allowing them to get away with stuff), but not all dogs make great teacher dogs for young pups and not all dogs are tolerant of young puppies. 

From your description, it sounds your German shepherd exhibited a good level of bite inhibition knowing the level of harm a dog of this breed and size can do. However, since there was food involved (chicken), there is likely some level of resource guarding going on. Food resource guarding takes place when a dog is eating something perceived as valuable and the dog uses some form of aggression to keep other dogs, people or other animals away. 

In cases of resource guarding there are always two dynamics taking place: a dog who gets stressed when he feels like he may lose access to a resource, and a dog who voluntarily or involuntarily crosses some boundaries getting too close to the resource guarder. Normally, the resource guarder should communicate his level of increasing discomfort by tensing his body, hovering over the resource, growling, etc, but a puppy may not take these messages seriously. Ignoring these signals, may lead to increasing aggressive displays and then a snap or inhibited bite. (For more on this see, Kendal Shepherd's ladder of aggression found here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dogs-dont-bite-blue/

Now, this could have been a rather innocent incident or there may be more to this. A behavior specialist watching the interactions in person may be able to assess the situation and determine what dynamics may be exactly going on. 

To play it safe, your best bet in the meanwhile is to keep the dogs separated when there is food around. In other words, when you must feed something to the German shepherd, keep the puppy in a separated area (inside a crate, inside a play pen, in an area separated by baby gate, in another room). This way, we can prevent another bite incident and your German shepherd can relax more knowing that he can eat undisturbed. On top of this, we won't allow rehearsal of the problem behavior (the more a dog rehearses a behavior, the more it eradicates and puts roots). With time, we may then progress to training both dogs to not cross boundaries when they are eating (both dogs are fed food in their bowls and no dog should move near the other dog's bowl). This may take time though to train, and this is why management (taking steps to prevent practicing resource guarding) is your best bet for now. 

The second incident where your German shepherd snapped at your puppy could have been simply a reaction to him stepping over him if it happened right when he was walking over him. Or it could have been your German shepherd may have been resource guarding you or the bowl of noodles if present. Again, this may be a normal reaction directed towards a puppy behaving in a socially illiterate way (which is rather normal at this age for pups to get in other dogs' faces, stepping over them, biting their ears and tails) or there may be more going on.

In the case of resource guarding, management can help once again here. If we're dealing with food resource guarding, keep noodles away from both dogs, if we're dealing with attention guarding, give attention to the German shepherd when the puppy is not around and vice-versa. 

Because there are risks here for the puppy getting harmed and there may be several dynamics going on (resource guarding food, resource guarding you, competition over resources, or simply an adult dog correcting a puppy), it would be ideal consulting with a dog behavior professional for safety and an accurate assessment. The dog behavior professional should assess the situation based on history taking and observation of the interactions and is in the best position to determine whether:

- the adult dog is engaging in discipline or if there is more into it

-the puppy is able to send appeasement signals to the adult dog

-the adult dog is capable of reading these appeasement signals

-the puppy is actually learning from the adult dog and how it responds

- the puppy appears traumatized by the discipline 

-the interaction should be stopped or allowed to continue

-If the puppy and adult dog should not be allowed to interact any more with the option of re-homing one of the two or keeping them permanently separated.

I hope this helps,

Let me know if your need any further help or elucidations. 

Best,

Adrienne