Dog Community

toys with 2 dogs

Posted : 5/2/2006 9:12:33 AM

hello all,

I have 2 puppies. A 10 month old female aussie shep, and a 4 month old male aussie shep.

Right now, whenever deunan wants to play with a toy, be it to chew on a bone - play fetch. Aydins mission in life is to take it away from her. Play with it for 5-10 seconds then forget about it. She is fairly patient, and will then pick it back up - only to have Aydin try and take it from her. Aydin isnt terribly toy motivated. Seperate the 2 of them, and he shows only low to mild intrest in toys - even if you try to hype the toy up. He loses intrest very quickly.

They both growl alot when they play(and bark), but i dont think its aggressive growling. Aydin will sometimes 'growl' when he shoves his face up the side of the cushions on our old couch - or when he is squeaking a toy. i think they growl to 'talk' - deunan did it before we got aydin with some of her toys.

Deunan can be the same brat that Aydin is. If she see's Aydin playing with something, she will take it away. So it will go back and forth. I can't really tell who is the alpha. I'd like to assume it's Deunan, but she lets Aydin get away with a lot of crap - rarely puts him in his place. I was wondering if maybe she is just going easy on him because he is a puppy.

Is this an issue? If it is an issue, is it an issue with who is vie'ing for alpha status, or just 2 dogs that want to hoard the toys? If so - what can i do to get them to share. Deunan can be a bit toy possive sometimes, altho i suspect that many times its because she wants a dog to play with her instead of with a toy.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice

mondayblues

Posted : 5/23/2006 7:41:12 AM

it could be a dominance/possessive thing. you can tell if a dog is lower-ranking if it acts submissively towards another dog: lies down and reveals its belly while the other dog stands over it, defers to the other dog, lets the other dog eat and go through doorways first, lets the other dog get its way, etc.

Angele Walker

Posted : 5/23/2006 8:24:54 AM

I have 3 dogs and the two younger ones do this same exact thing. My 3 year old (Cole) pitt/lab mix loves toys and my 1 1/2 terrier mix ( Jasper) will take the toy from him but wouldn't normally play with it if it was laying on the floor. They do growl and paly rough but I think Jasper thinks it's funny to try to take it from Cole becasue Cole will chase him after it.
In your case it may be an alpha issue but just watch them and see if they are just playing or if like mondayblues said it may be a dominance thing. By boys are always trying to be dominant but they never succeed. They all turn over to each other sooner or later. As long as they aren't really fighting over the toy I think they will work it out. But if it gets to the point where one of them gets hurt you may want to see about training or some sort of intervention.
Have a great day!

teufelhund

Posted : 5/23/2006 11:57:47 AM

Sometimes Deunan(11months) will play on her back with him. And sometimes he will play on his back with her.
At this point(several weeks after i first posted this) ive just assumd Deunan is the alpha, and feed her first.

Part of my problem was that aydin thought he could do whatever he wanted. The people at our day care
pointed this out. If they went to give a dog a treat, he thought he should have it first - so he got snarky with
the other dogs. I broke him of this pretty fast, he no longer lunges for treats when i give one to her, and i make
him sit there and watch her while she eats(he gets a few treats if he doenst even move toward her at all)

As for the toys. I think most of the time it's just play. I just dont want it to develop into a behvior where he thinks
he can take toys from other dogs.