Friend Move in with 8 mo Boxer to my house with 3 dogs 5 yr, 7 yr, 9 yr

[christiananon]

Hello All!

Bit of background to how we got to today: A friend of mine, we can call Shelly was in a tough spot with a jerk landlord, with little notice which did not afford her the time to save to move. I had known Shelly for 3 years (we met through work) and she had watched my house and dogs countless times. I was confident in her character prior to her moving in. When Shelly moved in she came with a 6-month-old Boxer mix puppy - Trixi (~45 lbs Female Spayed). (Trixi had nothing to do with the needing-to-move situation)

Our house can easily accommodate the pair. I moved my home office to the basement allowing them to have that room as their bedroom. We have a doggie door and a fenced-in yard big enough for the four dogs to roam around and play in (my three often chase each other back and forth, then spend the day sunbathing on the deck).

My dogs (All : (All Rescues - best guess between google / Vet guidance on breeds):

L - 9-year-old Australian Cattle Dog - Red brindle Male Neutered

C - 7-year-old Alaskan Husky Male Neutered

S - 5-year-old Husky / German Shepard Mix (Runt 45 lbs) Female Spayed

The problem:

Trixi has been showing aggressive behavior toward my dogs and it has not gotten any better over time. I thought being a new space, with new dogs, it would be a transition period.

Examples being :

Pushing, body slamming, standing over, pushing down, knocking over, putting her head on top of theirs when they are getting pets

Snapping at them randomly, if it's their turn for a walk and we come in the house snapping at them

Pushing or taking their spots on dog bed/couch

Taking toys from them / not letting them have toys

Trixi also has typical puppy problems - she is in the state of chewing and eating EVERYTHING - she has eaten all of my dogs toys, which I dumbly replaced their favorites with new of their favorites and she destroyed those too. So I bought a bunch of the teething kind, but I feel bad because C, wont play with heavy toys he likes the crinkle ones.

Trixi has followed me around non-stop since they moved in, when she is bullying I make her lay down, sit, or do some command. I won't let her take the toys from my dogs and I stop the behavior when I see it (luckily I work from home). I take her on lunch walks to get the energy out on super hyper days, and Shelly takes her on nightly walks (or at least she is supposed to it doesn't always happen). I just don't know how to get it to stop. Shelly is here for at least 2 more months max 7 months.

Trixi is also a revenge pee-er / not regularly use the doggy door. If I tell her to stop something, tell her no, or that she was bad, I will come downstairs and find that she has peed under my desk in the basement. We have gotten much farther with the doggy door. Accidents have gotten much less frequent, but the revenge pee is very much still a thing. I lost a rug due to that.

Breaking the peeing inside I can deal with - but I have never had a dog so mean and bullying to other dogs who aren't doing anything. My dogs only react once she has snapped at them, or when she is very aggressive in the body slamming. ((My oldest, L will not tolerate the stealing of toys or pushing out of spots, or trying to push him off of me or stealing pets either. He is the least tolerant of her. He hates her I am pretty sure. She tries him the least, but he put her in her place once early on pretty good. She had tried to steal a toy and he growled at her, so she then tried to hump him. L turned around quickly before I could grab him and pinned her down on her back. He let her up when I called his name, ever since then shes not tried him as much, but she still does every now and then. ))

I know she isn't my dog - so I am limited in things I can do. But any advice?

 

[lemonville]

@christiananon Trixi has been allowed way too much freedom for her age. I start puppies out with limited freedom within the house, so I can regulate house training and other undesirable behaviours like chewing. I use a pen during the day and a crate at night.

Puppies should be sleeping 20 hours a day and Trixi will not be getting enough sleep if she isn’t contained. This will lead to hyper behaviour and lack of ability to regulate her behaviour. You’ll also see increased mouthiness and decreased ability to learn.

You use containment to get her to sleep and let her out when you’re going to engage with her.

I also think that your dogs need time away from her. Her manners with dogs sounds pretty poor and she’s leaning towards resource guarding. She should be kept away from them unless you’re able to supervise and stop the bullying behaviour. I would put her on a light lead when you’re present and remove her when she starts doing things you don’t want her to do.

What’s noticeably absent from your post is what her owner is doing. I think it might be time to sit down and talk to Shelly and explain that Trixi’s behaviour isn’t acceptable and that she should do something about it. I think you’re awesome to have written this post, but you’ll both need to be involved, be consistent and have a plan if this is going to work.

At 6 months, I would be doing lots of training and setting Trixi up to be a well behaved dog. It would benefit her to work through “capturing calm” (check out Kikopup on YouTube) and a relaxation protocol. She needs to learn to be calm and to chill out.

I would also bear in mind that the more she rehearses and repeats behaviours, the more habitual they become.

 

[brokertom]

@lemonville 8 month old puppies generally do not sleep 20 hours a day the same way 10 week old puppies do. I agree completely with them not getting too much freedom, but our 9 month old puppy definitely is not down (sleeping or resting) for 20 hours a day. More like 15 hours, with some variance depending on activity. She also absolutely cannot be contained by a pen as she can easily jump vertically more than 4 feet as has been able to since she was 6 months old. We ended up having to tether her (to us) on top of restricting her space within the house. If she wasn't crated, she was attached to us via leash. She was a rescue who was a stray until she was 6 months, thus the lack of training for her age when we got her.

Edit to note that the title says 8 months but the text says 6 months. But even at 6 months our dogs were still not sleeping 20 hours a day (previous boxer and now GSD).

 

[lemonville]

@brokertom I read 6 months in the body and didn’t notice the 8 months in the title!

I’m really strict about sleep when it comes to puppies, so at 6 months I had a schedule in place and my puppy was sleeping 18-20 hours. At 9 months it was more like 16-18 hours, but was at the higher end.