[JosieBellaBrutus]

Until my boyfriend & I have a new place to live I took my 8 week old pitbull to moms house so that I can keep an eye on him during the day. My chihuahua Bella is very jealous towards him, and when he exhibits playful behavior she snaps and growls at him. He is clearly being playful not aggressive but he is also almost twice her size and I'm afraid that he is being too rough with her.

Today they got in a real fight because he got too close to her food bowl. She isn't good aggressive toward humans but to most dogs she is. She snapped at him and he fought back.

Hopefully it won't be long before we can take him to our own place where he will be the only dog.. But what worries me is that he's already much bigger than her and is only getting bigger from here.. Even if he's just being playful he could accidently hurt her. :/

 

[Sabina88]

Since this is only temporary I would keep them separated, especially around food and when you cant supervise.

 

[Rain]

Who does Bella belong to? Is she staying with your mom?

If she is not going to be coming with you when you move you really need to keep the dog's separate and make sure that your puppy only has good experiences with Bella when they do interact. You're puppy is at a very impressionable age and Bella could end up teaching him that small dogs are bad and he should react negatively towards them. If that happens it will be an uphill battle to teach him that small dogs are good and he doesn't have to bark, growl, and lunge at them.

 

[yoshiposhi]

I keep my older dog and Mia (pitbull puppy) separated when I feed them. Food and toys can bring out the worst in dogs sometimes.

When I first brought Mia home, because she wasn't fully vaccinated yet I couldn't socialize her with other dogs, so my older dog was the only dog she knew. Unfortunately with no social skills she couldn't read his body language and when he growled and bared her teeth at her, she thought that he wanted to play.

In the end I had to actually keep him at a friend's place for a couple of months while Mia went through obedience training and socializing with other pups (after her second set of shots provided the other pups were also vaccinated). Like @Rain had mentioned, I didn't want Mia to learning anything negative from my older dog. Socializing is so important to introduce from the very beginning.

Now she backs off when he growls at her and she knows to leave him alone. I still separate them when I'm not home. Like others have mentioned, since this is just temporary, I think separation is the best option for now. People would tell me to just let them figure it out on their own, but separating them was the better choice until Mia had learned enough social skills and matured a bit more before I could let her run free in the apartment.