Frustrated

[lynnk]

Hi,...I am becoming so frustrated with my puppy (11wks)old. She is constantly on my 2and a half yr. old. Both are great pyrs. Was it a mistake to get 2 females.???? Lola seems to have no interest in the pup, and the puppy wants to play,(and play rough) all the time. Growling, limb biting, ear biting,laying over Lolas back and chewing all over her. I am trying to keep it cool, but Lola is not enjoying this. I also don't want the puppy to think this is acceptable all the time. She plays rough even with her toys. She runs with them and shakes them while growing. Is this normal play. My head is spinning, I get paranoid of the future. I envision a aggressive dog,(please tell me I'm over-reacting. It was a rough morn. ,keeping Micah off Lola, listening to Micah yelp for minutes on end in her cage, and to still try to live a life on my 1st Mon. morn off in a long time. Last how do I get the barking, and crying to stop in the crate?.. I put her in the crate with treats,chewies, her food, I even got in with her one time till she fell asleep, I leave the door open to encourage her to come and go and she HATES it. Please help. I know this is a long rambler, but I am distraught. LYNN

[Nookie]

You just need to relax a bit, this playfulness is completely normal and the pup will outgrow it. You also need to learn to trust your adult dogs instincts at bit. She will definately let the pup know in no uncertain terms when it has gone to far.

The playfulness would have happened regardless of the ***, its just a natural process of its development. Most adults are very tolerant of pups, some will reciprociate play, others wont, but they all will set the pup straight when it crosses the line.

As the the crate training, you can't baby it, you need to let it know that its crate is its safe and quiet place. Crate it up for the night, making sure you let it out to pee at least a couple times as its bladder is small at that age. It will howl and whine for several days until it finally falls asleep, but as long as you dont cater to it and let it out, it will learn that this tactic does not work and will eventually learn to like the crate.

It can also help if you feed it while in the crate as well as the dog will learn to associate the crate with the positive act of eating.

Be sure to issue a command when crating it, such as "kennel up". We did this and ours runs top speed for the crate when issued the command

Typically, you will only have people aggression problems if you fail to properly train or socialize the dog. You should be able to reach in while it is eating and remove the food or play with it without any signs of aggression from the dog at all. If there is, that is a sign that you need to work to assign yourself to being the dogs alpha in its mind.