calliecritturs
Posted : 7/3/2010 5:11:37 PM
both of you should take turns feeding the other person's dog.
Have you ever heard of "NILIF"??? Nothing IN Life Is Free?? Literally -- the dog needs to "sit" for ANYTHING -- to be petted, to get the first morsel of food, to get a toy, to go out ... ANY thing.
By literally hand-feeding each dog a kibble at a time for the first part of the meal, you establish clearly who is in charge and that both of you "out-rank" (that's really not even a good choice of words -- but you get my meaning) the dogs. That her dog needs to respect you, and yours needs to respect her.
Frankly -- everbuddy's dog needs to be on the fllor until this is resolved. If you want to spend some quality time with yours sit on the floor with him. Same with her.
Both of you are going to have to be SUPER aware of dog body language -- the doxie is giving signals -- you just MISS them. with some dogs a glare is all you get -- but they also will go "tense" -- and that's a thing dogs DO read in each other. But your dog is probably giving off signals but when the other dog gets the all clear to jump up with you the small dog THEN reacts because he wants the lab to "heed" him.
So in essence you'll both have to be completely aware of what BOTH dogs are doing. Don't call one dog up and not the other. In fact, honestly -- i wouldn't have either "up" for a LONG time -- you will likely have to establish some very clear boundaies here.
Remember they are establishing boundaries with EACH OTHER -- and likely you humans are unintentionally over-riding that.
That's danagerous -- because then, at some point when you humans aren't around, they're likely to tangle over something minor. I would seriously NOT leave them alone unattended. It's just plain dangerous, no matter how well you *think* they get along.
ONe if bigger, the other is more aggressive. That's a potential BIG problem.
Don't just set down food -- SUPERVISE eating all the way thru. Don't leave toys or bones around ... if they're terrirorial about the humans they will be about other things.
Realize too -- part of this is pure jealousy for attention -- if you two are cuddling then the dogs AREN'T getting what they want and that's likely going to make things hotter. You may want to make a clear "blanket" for each to lie on -- and nope, you stay on *your*( blanket on the floor unless I bring your blanket up next to me .... then keep your butt on YOUR blanket.
Does that make sense?