MegNZ

Hi Dogsfevr, thanks for your response. Lots of great info. I will look up how to teach mind & body coordination. I'm not a fan of dog parks. Cesar Millan goes as far as to say they're one of the worst places you can take a puppy or leaderless dog. The main place I go is a very large local park with 3 sports fields. It has paved paths so very walker friendly, plus the sports fields are walker friendly too. I sometimes meet up with a stable/set group of humans and their dogs but I do a good 30 minutes of training at the park 1st, with the ball throw being one of Lulu's rewards for performing what I ask. I used to "just take my dog/s out", now my outings are very structured, starting before we leave the house. Every step (leash going on, exiting the house, exiting the car, walking around the park, leash being taken off prior to a ball session, every throw of the ball etc etc) requires her to perform a particular set of behaviours 1st. Sophi will be treated the same. I rarely see anyone doing obedience or structured games with their dog/s there. You said what you would be managing in the pup is how to cope with not having to protect its human all the time & the skills to switch off. Is that because her breed mixes are from guardian type dogs? Tho I seriously doubt she has any bullmastiff in her, and at the moment she's amstaff in weight. Lulu, my 20 month old rottie, is displaying zero need to protect me. At what age is this tendency likely to become apparent. What kind of jobs would ensure the outside world is me only?

I'm getting the impression 2 female dogs really, really not getting on isn't very common, but it can have a huge impact when it does happen - something extreme like having to rehome one of them or keep them permanently separate - hence the advice to avoid having multiple female dogs, where possible. I've known 7 people with more than one female, and have had more than one myself several times, and there have been no issues. Is it less likely to occur when one of the females joins the family/pack as a young puppy, compared to the 2 females being brought together as adults?

Thanks for your response Andy. I've given some updates throughout this thread, all in all things are going very well. Anyone have anything to add to the short list I wrote outlining my thoughts so far regarding how to (hopefully!) prevent my 2 girls from having any issues with each other when Sophi reaches adolescence and adulthood? I've taken Sophi to the park a couple of times this past week, tossing up her incomplete vaccination status with her need to see a bit of the world. Plus my friend is also sick right now and isn't able to mind her when I take Lulu out for some exercise. Looks like she's moving out of her fear period, she was very relaxed and playful at the park yesterday, happily chasing Lulu while Lulu ran after the ball etc. The staffy in her appeared! - that lovely big staffy smile they do when they are panting. Made me grin, she normally looks so serious. She met a couple of vaccinated dogs and I was very pleased with how she greeted them - quietly, a bit tentatively, but no real fear. The sniffs happened and the dogs went their separate ways. Perfect. I'm expecting her greetings when an adolescent to be a lot less polite but I'm going to do my best to keep dogs as neutral as possible. This means I need to do more work with Lulu so she doesn't teach Sophi some strange dogs are really exciting. Lulu has learnt to greet most dogs fairly calmly now but it can be a real free for all when they are around her age and/or playful. Or maybe that is normal? Sophi is learning what wait means - at the doorway to the main part of the house and at the front door when I open it - plus I can hold a piece of kibble in my open hand by her mouth, tell her wait then release her to eat it with an "okay" when she sits waiting and looking at me. Takes her a bit longer to sit patiently when it's a piece of cheese or better, so that's what I'm working on atm. I gave her some of Lulu's raw food the other day (beef/horse/offal mix) and she went absolutely bananas over it! Training is much easier when you have a foodie. Lulu and Sophi are now able to "play fight" without Sophi getting really snotty (frustration? overwhelm?). I'm still keeping that kind of play quite short and it's easy to interrupt. Lulu is too much of a big kid to "discipline" Sophi/tell her when she's being too over the top or getting too serious, so I'm doing it. Plus sometimes it's Lulu I'm needing to tell to settle down/ease off a bit. My previous dog, Grace, was amazing with puppies - a mix of play and guidance and some serious parenting when needed. It was a joy watching her with Lulu when Lulu was a wee pup. Cancer took her at age 11 very fast. Still heartbroken. She was so vital, so full of life, and not a grey hair on her, not a sick day in her life.

My credit cards likes your idea better!

Haha!! Yea, I look at the breed/s given by rescue agencies and the council pounds. Most of them are complete guesses unless they 100% know the breed/s of the parents. Sophi's dad may even be a guess by his owners. He was very definitely part rottie (unmistakable looking at his head) but who knows what he is really crossed with. He was male rottie in size and black all over (no rottie tan, rust or mahogany markings). He had quite a deep muzzle, not particularly rottie looking but definitely not bullmastiff looking either, so the bullmastiff part might not even be true. A black lab/rottie mix fits much better with the dog I met and would possibly account for the shape of his muzzle. But who knows!! Mum was definitely amstaff but quite a stocky heavy set one, especially for a dog that had recently carried, delivered and fed 14 puppies. Maybe I'll fork out for a DNA testing kit if curiosity gets the better of me.

Looking at a bunch of different weight charts for a female pup of each breed Sophi is currently amstaff weight for her age, a bit under rottie weight and quite a bit under bullmastiff weight.

Thanks Mairead. So far I've been fortunate with my female dogs, they've always gotten along great together. A very occasional squabble over a food resource in the distant past but nothing more than that. The only dog on dog aggression issue I've had has been a female dog (mine - a lab/border collie) hitting puberty and challenging a 8 or so year old male fox terrier in the house (teeth involved, mostly hers, no damage done tho). My partner (owner of the fox terrier) and I called in a trainer (who, I see now, was unfortunately next to useless). We didn't know how to handle it, just couldn't get past the difference in size between the 2 dogs, and we ended up keeping the 2 dogs separated for years (until the relationship ended). Bit by bit I've learnt prevention/management is better than a cure so now I make sure whatever dogs live in my home are always fed separately, food bowls are immediately removed, washed and stored out of reach, and the dogs are crated for things like rawhide chews, bully sticks etc. But fights can happen for all sorts of reasons, not just food resources, so I will need to be on my guard. My thoughts so far are: I need to provide clear, definite leadership, I need to make sure both dogs receive adequate exercise to keep them reasonably drained, I need to make sure both get one on one time with me playing and training, I need to make sure neither have free access to a toy/resource they consider valuable, regarding training I need to make sure both dogs have a very solid recall, leave it, drop, sit or down stay and settle/place. What have I missed? Lulu is still a young dog at only 20 months old so I can't speak for her temperament and behaviour once fully mature, but I can say that right now she doesn't have a mean or possessive bone in her body. I cannot, however, speak for Sophi because she is so young still. I've read a lot about the (known) breeds in Sophi's mix (rottie, bullmastiff, amstaff) but I'm pretty sure the sites online that speak positively about them are describing traits in a well-balanced dog (well balanced due to good genetics and good life experiences). I have no idea, at this point, if Sophi is going to be a well-balanced dog. If she is, I've got a real cracker of a dog like Lulu. If she isn't I have my work cut out for me. I don't think her breeds work against her, it's just that she will be a large, very powerful dog. An e.g. fox terrier going ape sh*t on the leash when it sees another dog is a very different prospect to a 30+ kg dog doing it. An e.g. fox terrier racing about doing zoomies in close proximity to people is a very different prospect to a 30+ kg dog doing that.

Thanks for the info re the thumbnail app and Dog Star Daily. I've been sick with a cold/strep throat the past 4 days and no sign I'm moving through it yet. Very unlike me to get a cold, this is my 3rd, maybe 4th, my whole life (61 years). I've been reading through a few of the pinned threads. The socialization and neutralization one is very interesting, minus the incessant bickering and sniping going on between a couple of the contributors. When it comes to socializing, I can see the benefits of a dog viewing things as neutral, rather than positive, or God forbid negative. It's got me thinking about how I will introduce Sophi to new dogs. There is a loose group of us that meet up at a local park at around 5pm with our dogs off lead. The group consists of about 20 regulars with 4-8 of us being there on any given day. I'd like to introduce Sophi to new dogs very differently than I did with Lulu, partly to teach her dogs/new dogs aren't super exciting and partly to protect her from negative/harmful interactions. I've ended up having to do a lot of work with Lulu to teach her to greet dogs/new dogs calmly and it's going to be an ongoing work in progress for quite a while to come. Plus she's had some really negative experiences with a few dogs that I'm sure have affected her. Living with Lulu means Sophi is already a bit of a doggy dog at home (looking to Lulu to as a resource to satisfy needs for play, relationship etc) so I'm going to need to do and keep doing a lot of work to keep me as her number one, not Lulu. Ditto Lulu with me as her number one, not Sophi. My friend Ruby (who lives with me) has a 13 year old staffy girl who is very disinterested in Sophi so Sophi is having one experience of "neutralization" with a dog. The info on fear periods is timely (approx 12-16 weeks according to one of the threads). I'm now glad I am in a lot of pain and sick and she isn't fully vaccinated because it's prevented me from exposing her to all sorts of everything in the middle of a fear period when I didn't know one happens between approx 12-16 weeks! And she's most definitely in this fear period judging by her behaviour when I've taken her up on the driveway and street a couple of times to watch, listen, and sniff about. Tail tucked, darting movements, crouched a bit low etc. Thankfully I've kept it very low key, not asking anything of her. Just standing still when she doesn't want to move and moving with her keeping the leash loose when she's wanted to sniff. And quietly feeding kibble when she's wanted to eat some. I really like the Triangle of Temptation training/exercise. I do some of it already (have done for years) but I think it's worth doing every step in the exercise to achieve the best results. I just need to figure out how to do it in the physical space I live in - hoping Sophi doesn't need too many yards between her and her food bowl to achieve the mind state the post writer describes. All in all things are going well. I'm looking forward to not being sick though, I ache all over and am nonstop exhausted. Makes life with a 15 week old pup and 20 month old "pup" very hard. They are on the go way more than I can handle right now lol. Yay for crates and stuffed kongs and yay for Ruby upstairs for Lulu to go hang out with some of the time.

Hi Mairead, they play with a toy together quite happily most of the time, it's the dog/dog wrestling/mouthing/play fighting I need to monitor and keep very brief. I subscribed to the Dunbar Academy a few months back for a month's free trial and watched and listened to about 150 hours of content. I liked a lot of what he said and learnt about the intricacies of how to make classical conditioning work for me and my dog/s, instead of against us. His son annoyed me tho, the American "sales culture" grates on me as a New Zealander. Just be real for goodness' sake. I laughed reading you say chewing is in a dog's job description. Thankfully little pups grow up and learn what they're allowed to chew and what they're not. Tho, in saying that, Sophi has been pretty damn good so far. I do what Cesar Millan does - I don't remove the item (unless it's potentially dangerous or valuable), I hold it close to her and make his noise or go "uh uh!", then reward her when she doesn't try to chew it/turns her head/walks away etc. So things like the broom (which she thought was wonderful when I was sweeping the porch!!) and my slippers are left out and so far she's continuing to leave them be. Being so young she only has access to whichever room I'm in as I go about my day and I keep a close eye on her. It's tiring but definitely worth the effort.

Most of the pics I have are a weeny bit too big for the kilobyte restriction here

These 2 are of Lulu at 3 or so months old.

Haha! No, not yet - but only because she's such a good girl!! I'm a tech idiot so waiting for my friend to send me some pics she's taken of Sophi, but here's one of my darling Lulu taken about 6 months ago. The border collie is another friend's dog.

Yes, that's possible, thanks for that The quiet puppy I had the 1st few days is now a "normal puppy" lol. Still quite low energy but is now exploring anything that moves or is new with her mouth (aka chewing on stuff) and generally getting into puppy mischief. She's teething too and really enjoys quiet time with chew toys and random bits of material she likes. Lulu's initial excitement has settled and Sophi's confidence has grown so the 2 girls are playing happily together. I'm still keeping the dog/dog play sessions quite short because Sophi can get a bit snotty when she's tired or feeling overwhelmed or frustrated (she has no chance of moving or impacting a 30kg dog lol), but they happily play for a good while when a toy is their focus. She protested a while when put in her crate at nighttime the 1st few days but the protesting has very quickly subsided. Yay! I'm giving her a bit of crate time during the day too and she's generally accepting it well. A helpful tip I got from the Dunbar Academy is to put her food in the crate and shut the door for a few seconds, with her on the outside wanting to get in. Toilet training is going well. I put up with the winter cold and leave an outside door open and quite a few times she's taken herself outside to pee/poop (with me following ready to treat and praise). I got lazy yesterday, assuming she'd "got it" (silly me!!) and she peed inside a couple of times even tho the door was open. I got Lulu at 7 weeks and from day one she took herself outside to pee and poop, but Lulu hadn't had weeks of practicing toileting inside like Sophi has (plus Lulu was unusually exceptional). So, back to taking her out every few hours (like I should be!) I haven't bonded with her yet but I didn't with Lulu initially either. She's getting tons of affection and snuggle time (which she loves!) but I'm pretty /shrug about her, as far as heart involvement goes. I just need time before I give my heart away.

I have never seen a pup poo so much! I dewormed Sophi on the day I got her and she did 5-6 huge poos her 1st 5 days here. It's settled down now to 2-3 the past 2 days. I didn't see any worms in her poo but maybe she was carrying a large worm burden despite her previous owners saying they regularly dewormed the pups?