Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My thanks to everyone for their patience and help, as I struggle to be a conscientious two-dog owner!

My topic for today....Playing!

New dog (9 mo. old beagle male) is, naturally, very rambunctious and loves to play. Existing dog (2 yr. old Corgi/Lab mix female) is begrudgingly (after 1 month together)learning to accept the constant nipping and wrestling.

Beagle is younger and faster, and tends to hoard the toys. We've tried to encourage sharing, with little success. We've tried to encourage joint playing (tug of war, etc.) with even worse success, as the female either:

Goes after the beagle with LOTS of growling and teeth-gnashing, much more than the usual wrestling-play involves, or:

Gives up trying to play and comes to a human begging for attention (jumping on a lap, paws on our shoulders - I believe she would crawl inside of us if she could).

So - should we just leave well enough alone and accept that maybe the female won't get any toys, or keep trying to teach "share" to the beagle?

How much did your mix play before the puppy came? Has there been a significant decrease?

With our two, we have separate play times (human/dog play times), and it took about a year before they understood how to play with each other. I had a mix that is about the size of a whippet who was 6 at the time, and my husband had a 2 year old German Shepherd. Just the size difference made play difficult because the GSD gets overamped and plays too rough.

Even today, two years later, they still have separae backyard time, and they understand the phrase "Max's turn" or "Indy's turn".

When they do play, I am the moderator, and while they are allowed to play gently inside, but I don't let them play in the yard where things escalate. I don't insist on sharing, but I do insist that they each get their own time. In time, they have developed their own relationship -- they are quite bonded. The older dog's role is usually to bark to tell on the younger GSD when he is doing something wrong......

One thing that we have done in puppy class is to teach the puppy how to play nice. It's better when there is an older dog around that will do the teaching, but in the absence of that, you can do it. A squirt bottle filled only with water sometimes help back off the pup when he is getting too rambunctious (sp?).

Thanks, Lisa. The older dog was very slow to engage in play when we first got her, but then she learned to enjoy a good game of fetch the stuffed animal. Now she seems to have reverted back to her old ways - very slow to engage (especially when compared to the younger dog!) We do walk the dogs by themselves, and have maintained her existing walk schedule since getting the new dog - she also gets to go on a lot more car rides since she's much better behaved in the car than the puppy is. Haven't tried individual play sessions yet, but it sounds like a great idea which we'll try!

hopefully she'll spring back once she gets used to the new pup around. I do know how hard it can be!