[Puggleman]

Hi everyone!

So I recently posted about adding a Miniature Australian Shepherd to our household. I'm happy to say that we've put down the deposit and are hoping to get her either tomorrow or Sunday. However, I'm a tad bit nervous about our Puggle. He is 3 years old and very good with other dogs (loves to play with my mom's three) but when we took him to meet her, it went so-so.

He was huddled very much around mom and dad and when the little aussie would come up and play/nip, he would growl a little and then scurry away. No biting, a little growing, and pawed her down once at the end. When my mother got their most recent dog, she would nip a little bit at him too at first, but now they're great and love to play so I hope this will be the same.

Is this him telling her who is boss or establishing some kind of 'pack leadership'? Should I intervene or call his name or let them battle it out?

I think he's not used to having some little bugger nipping at his tail and ears for attention but I'd love your thoughts. onder:

 

[Redwood]

There isn't really a pack heirarchy thing you need to worry about. It's likely more because this small fluff thing isn't acting the way he's used to. Dogs use growls and such to communicate, if there's no efforts at real violence (and this means biting, not just snapping and a lot of scary noise! scary noise is communication for them), then he probably just needs to adjust a bit.

Adult dogs have different behaviors than puppies. He might just not be used to pups.

 

[Channyyy]

If he's just growling and then removing himself from the situation, it's more likely him telling the puppy nipping is not something he's going to deal with.

 

[mathilda]

Congrats to the new puppy.
your Pug-mix probably just told the puppy to leave him alone. there's nothing wrong with that... a lot of dogs don't really appreciate it when a lively puppy gets too close to them and starts nipping at then.
luckily the puppy gets older fast.
make sure to protect your older dog from the puppy until the puppy learned some boundaries.