hello! We have a 9 year old beagle girl and a 12 week old black lab boy. Our older beagle is quite anxious around other dogs and around the puppy. When he plays with her if he gets too boisterous she growls or barks. Then if he doesn’t back off she starts humping him. Anyone got any ideas what we can do to help increase the amount of time they spend together but avoid her humping him? We are trying to remove him from her before she humps him but sometimes don’t manage it. At the moment they spend most of their time away from each other. And only interact for a minute or so each time. A few times a day. Our current plan is to try to increase the number of times they interact for this very short time. Does anyone have any experience of this or any tips? Thank you!
It sounds like you're doing all the right things. Ensure they spend most time apart and have a few hours when you work on them together - it might help to put a puppy house line on the puppy, so you can gently intervene and restrain if he is getting too much for the older dog.
It does sound like you are doing the right thing I have a four month old puppy and she still isn't allowed unrestricted access to my older dogs. But four weeks ago, where you are now, her contact with them was limited to a few times a day for a few minutes. Whereas now, I can sometimes leave her with them for half an hour or more, depending on how annoying and bouncy she is. Things will improve very gradually and in a few months time you'll barely remember it being an issue. Let us know how you get on!
Thank you. Really helpful to get some feedback. We have reconfigured our downstairs so easier to have him out for a bit then back in his own puppy part of a room rather than his pen. He is already starting to settle down more, especially as we now have created some barricades outside so when the older dog retreats to a bench the puppy can’t get to her and he quickly wandered off and is now spending more time rolling around on the lawn chewing something quite happy. So they are together in the space and calm but entertaining themselves
Thank you for the reply! That is such a helpful comparison to have. Thinking about it he is so much calmer now and not trying to bite her all the time like he was at 10 weeks. And now we know we can have that to look forward to in a month already if we keep at the short calm encounters between the two of them! And have the pen turned into a baby gate so we can either drop him into that space or retreat ourselves when he gets bitey. He is currently happily snoring away after walk number 5 out the house. :0) and today appeared a few times by my left leg looking very pleased with himself! We have been doing oodles of the running recall and establishing heel exercises for the past three weeks and can’t believe he is already doing some of this outside in the big wide world!
