New pup and 10 year old - beginning to get along?

BenEadir

Hi all,

Long story short is I adopted an 8 week old pup about 5 weeks ago. She is 50% Newfoundland (father) and her mother is a mix of Rottweiler and Northern Innuit. I already have a 10 year old who is predominantly a Labrador/GSD mix and I want the older dog to mentor the pup and show her good habits etc whilst hopefully the young pup will rejuvenate the older dog as she enters her old age.

I was concerned that the old dog would reject the new pup and for the first few weeks there was a lot of teeth being bared when the pup would nip away at the old dog's tail including a few nips on the nose by the old dog to the pup when the pup annoyed the old dog too much. There was never any concerted fighting and the old dog always stopped at a quick snarl or light nip, never any blood and flesh flying or anything like that!!

I was wondering how long it would be before the pup got to a size where they might start to interact more socially rather than as old dog / young pup and this morning I was delighted to see them playing away together and chasing each other etc. It still looked like the older dog was dominant but for the first time she seemed happy to play games with the pup rather than just tolerate her. I got a couple of minutes of it on video and would appreciate the thoughts of people here who are experienced in dealing with old god/new pup relationships. Is the activity in the video a sign that the relationship between the dog and pup is normalising and they will find an accommodation they are both happy with or could this be a once off and the norm will be a grumpy old dog who tolerates the pup but keeps her at arms length as much as possible?

tk123

I'm interested in what others think because I think the pup might be a bit overwhelmed/unsure of the older dog in parts of the video? Could be that they just need to get used to how the other plays though. With my two they're both retrievers so they like to play bite and crush each other!

peasant

To my (unprofessional) eyes this looks absolutely fine.
No dog is crowding the other one, interrupting signals are heeded, both dogs initiate play again, both had chances where they could have walked away if they had wanted to ...neither of them did.

Looks to me like they were enjoying each other's company.

BenEadir

peasant wrote: »

To my (unprofessional) eyes this looks absolutely fine.
No dog is crowding the other one, interrupting signals are heeded, both dogs initiate play again, both had chances where they could have walked away if they had wanted to ...neither of them did.

Looks to me like they were enjoying each other's company.

Thanks Peasant, I very much hope you are right. We've been working hard to integrate them and I found this mornings interaction very encouraging.

Pretzill

That's great. Older dog iniated the play and seems to back off pretty quickly when it's too much for puppy - tail going all the time too. With my two they're closer in age but the elder of the two can get a bit carried away and doesn't give in as gently! I think your older dog is enjoying the interaction a bit more than pup at the moment - but a Newfoundland X you say puppy may have the upper paw when she's more confident and bigger!

Lovely to see an older dog enjoying the company of a newcomer - and I'm sure teaching pup well too.

BenEadir

Pretzill wrote: »

Lovely to see an older dog enjoying the company of a newcomer - and I'm sure teaching pup well too.

Yes, over the last few days they have become firm friends. The pup pushes the boundary a bit too far now and again (or wants to keep playing when the older dog is tired) and the older dog will snap and bare it's teeth to assert it's authority but the pup always stops what it is doing and the older dog always leaves it at a short sharp reminder so I'm very hopeful their relationship will blossom into what I had hoped to create by getting the pup at this point in time.

Cheers.