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New Puppy makes older dog sad?

breezyy493

New Member
Hi everyone,
We just added another Doberman to our pack, and our one year old dobie is not too happy about it. She doesn’t get aggressive, but she is literally sulking around the house. We are almost paying more attention to her with this new pup, as we are trying to make the new pup a positive addition. While I thought we were making progress, she started grabbing socks for attention (a bad 9 month old habit I thought we grew out of), bringing them in the living room, dropping them, then sulking back to the bedroom. Any advise on how to make her welcome this new puppy? She’s done well with other dogs, so we’re both a bit surprised. We love her and it is breaking our heart to see her so sad... before this I didn’t think I’d ever seen a dog behave in such a sad manner.
 
I've never had two Dobermans, but I have had Dobermans with a smaller dog like a Pomeranian or my chi/mix that I have now. I'm a little surprised that your one year old Doberman would be depressed about having a puppy. The 'older one' is still quite a puppy herself! You would think having another puppy would be quite fun! Sometimes bringing a puppy in with a much older dog creates problems similar to what it would be like giving an 80 year old person a two-year-old to care for. The age difference is so great and the older dog doesn't necessarily want to put up with the shenanigans of a young puppy.

I would say continue doing what you're doing, giving attention to both. I'm sure there is still a lot of training going on with your 1 year old. Give them both individual training and attention and I'm sure this will all change. :goodluck:
 
Well that sounds odd!

My Dobe was almost 2.5 years old when we brought our lab puppy home but she was fascinated by him!

Regardless, we made it a point to do things with both dogs and individually so that they learned to focus while in the company of each other but also so that they weren't 100% reliant upon each other.

What does the older dog enjoy most? Going for walks? Fetch outside? I would make sure she get's a healthy dose of a super fun, one-on-one activity with you still.

My lab puppy does not care for kids (we do not have any of our own) and when our nieces come over, he does the sulky thing that I imagine your older dog does. He just creeps around corners to the opposite side of the room of where the kids are. They're too loud, too bouncy, too energetic for him. Perhaps your older dog feels this way about the puppy. Continual positive reinforcement and interactions will certainly help, I would think!
 
She is unsure of where she stands in the pack hierarchy. Don’t coddle the behavior as you will be reinforcing the behavior. She is a teen and wants all the attention herself. Continue with her training and normal activity, feed her first and help her understand it’s not changing her status but also correct her unwanted behavior.

Are you crate training the puppy? Make sure the puppy has her own toys as well as your one year old. Both are still puppies and an adjustment period is to be expected.
Continued training is very important because the puppy will watch and take cues from the 1yr old’s behavior. You don’t want the pup to develop bad habits that are hard to break.

Puppy proof everything so the one year old doesn’t have the opportunity to grab socks and other things that could cause a blockage from ingesting it. Keep the puppy in a contained area so she does not have all the freedom of the one year old that has earned her freedom of space.
 
My lab puppy does not care for kids (we do not have any of our own) and when our nieces come over, he does the sulky thing that I imagine your older dog does. He just creeps around corners to the opposite side of the room of where the kids are. They're too loud, too bouncy, too energetic for him.
Interesting to know this about Moose. The breed stereotype had me thinking he’d be a child’s best friend. It’s similar with Kaiser. He’s indifferent to kids and I think it’s because he’s not around any. Little critters that are crazier than he is = caution :D
 
Thank you all for your words of wisdom! Today was much better.

Well that sounds odd!

My Dobe was almost 2.5 years old when we brought our lab puppy home but she was fascinated by him!

Regardless, we made it a point to do things with both dogs and individually so that they learned to focus while in the company of each other but also so that they weren't 100% reliant upon each other.

What does the older dog enjoy most? Going for walks? Fetch outside? I would make sure she get's a healthy dose of a super fun, one-on-one activity with you still.

My lab puppy does not care for kids (we do not have any of our own) and when our nieces come over, he does the sulky thing that I imagine your older dog does. He just creeps around corners to the opposite side of the room of where the kids are. They're too loud, too bouncy, too energetic for him. Perhaps your older dog feels this way about the puppy. Continual positive reinforcement and interactions will certainly help, I would think!

We did some serious fetch when we got home, and the older one loved it. She was much more at ease.
I would say your analogy to kids is pretty spot on to what I am seeing.

I've never had two Dobermans, but I have had Dobermans with a smaller dog like a Pomeranian or my chi/mix that I have now. I'm a little surprised that your one year old Doberman would be depressed about having a puppy. The 'older one' is still quite a puppy herself! You would think having another puppy would be quite fun! Sometimes bringing a puppy in with a much older dog creates problems similar to what it would be like giving an 80 year old person a two-year-old to care for. The age difference is so great and the older dog doesn't necessarily want to put up with the shenanigans of a young puppy.

I would say continue doing what you're doing, giving attention to both. I'm sure there is still a lot of training going on with your 1 year old. Give them both individual training and attention and I'm sure this will all change. :goodluck:

Thank you for the encouragement! we are always looking at new tricks to go over and are fixing some behaviors, in the last 3 months, she's gone from total puppy to an actual dog (with some puppy tendencies ;) !) We get to work on the fun stuff now!


She is unsure of where she stands in the pack hierarchy. Don’t coddle the behavior as you will be reinforcing the behavior. She is a teen and wants all the attention herself. Continue with her training and normal activity, feed her first and help her understand it’s not changing her status but also correct her unwanted behavior.

Are you crate training the puppy? Make sure the puppy has her own toys as well as your one year old. Both are still puppies and an adjustment period is to be expected.
Continued training is very important because the puppy will watch and take cues from the 1yr old’s behavior. You don’t want the pup to develop bad habits that are hard to break.

Puppy proof everything so the one year old doesn’t have the opportunity to grab socks and other things that could cause a blockage from ingesting it. Keep the puppy in a contained area so she does not have all the freedom of the one year old that has earned her freedom of space.

YES to this. This was what my husband & I needed to hear today. We came home and greeted our older one as we normally do - greeting her first and feeding her first. We each spent some time working with her away from the puppy.
I went to the store and restocked on toys - finding a duplicate of her favorite that she loved to death - and gave her and the puppy something for them each.
Regarding ingesting socks .... Yes we learned that the hard way - she ate one and threw it up on the bed. That was all we needed to keep socks away. The sock she grabbed she managed to get from a dresser, which she has NEVER grabbed anything off of before. We are now on extreme alert for this.
All & all, she is far less mopey today, and I think it's because we tried as much as possible to stick to the old routine.

We put the pup in the crate area and the older pup walks over and is beginning to be intrigued, so we'll see!

Thank you for all the support on this!! I've been reading these forums for the last year and the advise I find is always helpful.
 
Well all very good news to hear! Dogs love routine and changing it can be hard for them but they are wonderfully adaptive creatures! please keep us posted on how they get along :D
 

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