Dominating little puppies

Hi All

My beautiful Tash aged 13 months has taken to dominating little puppies that she meets, a few weeks back, sitting on a little Labrador puppies face and then when it had the audacity to try and push her off she quick as a wink turned and pinned said dog down. I pulled her off straight away.

Today on a walk when my hubby was playing a ball another Labrador puppy on a lead this time came up, tash went up to it, the dog went submissive and tash leaned all over it when it started to jump up tash gave that beautiful tashy growl that sounds like she's gonna kill them.

What have you lovely lot done to control this kind of dominance, not scared that she will attack but obviously with all the bad press they're getting at the moment, I don't really want this kind of thing going on

jules

Not really able to advise never had Rocky do this behaviour with puppies he is usually just very playful with them. I'm sure someone will be along to offer some support very soon.

Not a behavior that I have come across with Chiquito so unfortunately not able to offer any specific advice for it in particular.

When Chiquito does display a behavior that I do not consider to be acceptable when playing with other dogs I remove him for some 'time out', removing him until he calms before allowing him to rejoin the play again. Along as you do this consistently (every time they display the behavior!!) they soon get the idea of what stops play and will avoid it to allow them to keep playing.

Its a tough one, staffords can be quite dominant dogs particularly bitches. I would just not allow her to do it. For example turn her around and walk her away from the other dog, try again a minute later and if she does it again remove her from the situation again.

Its hard to cure dominance since it is all to do with how confident they are and how much they think of themselves (usually a lot!) If it is dominance with a specific dog this is much easier to deal with. Tash is at the age now where she is trying to push the boundaries and is thinking of herself as a 'big dog'.

I have to quite strict with our 3 as they do try to dominate one another at times, Tali or Kali-mist get upset and will growl at each other and go 'stiff', this is when I step in with a sharp no and push the 'dominee' off the other and block any jealous nips with my body, then they are not allowed near the dog they are dominating. Skibadee is hilarious, she learned long ago that another dog can only dominate her if she reacts. So she will be playing with a dog, then it tries to dominate her, and she makes a big show of not making eye contact, pretending the other dog is not there, stretching out, yawning and pretending like she was doing something else anyway the whole time. When they don't get a reaction the dominant dog gets bored and wanders off. Makes me giggle.

Hi, I had a similar issue when mine was a pup too. Nice to see you are trying to do something about it. I persisted with socialising him. Dogs of all ages helped me. Older dogs put mine in his place. I found dog etiquette with meet and greet very important. when Mako (my boy) was trying to dominate another dog i would walk him out of the situation and get him to drop (a submissive position) and get the other dog to sniff him. He behaved, high reward!! lots of play!! control the environment you put him in. When he was introduced to much taller dogs i.e. Labradors, Rottweilers, and German Shepherds the rule then was "four paws stay on the ground at all times". obviously they would stand over him so he would still try to dominate them.
Now at 4 1/2 ish years old he has his moments. follows the rules keeps all paws on the ground tries to say hello(has a sniff) if dominated by another dog he lets them know and takes 3 steps away, drops looks at me with the cute staffy face and acts like.....what was that....who did that....it can't of been me...what cheeky dog would do such a thing.
You have to love it!

Not something I have experienced as Vinnie just plays with them. Echo all the above just keep socialising and remove her as soon as you spot the signs. It may be an idea on lead to just walk by let her have a quick sniff and carry on walking for a while, this way she will get to know a puppy is no different . Seems like you are doing everything right so good luck. 

This is really interesting, My mum has a 14 week old German Pointer and he is very much like this, because he is naturally bigger than other puppies he uses his size to dominate them. He's very playful and thinks he's being gentle (I've seen him play with bigger dogs), but he just doesn't know when to give up. It's tricky to know what to do for the best, we don't want to remove him and prevent him from socialising, but at the same time, he can be relentless when it comes to play. He needs to learn manners!