# Need Advice (How to get a Spoo puppy and older little dog to get along)



## Rocketagility (Apr 27, 2010)

I truely beleive your spoo pup will get along but right now the pup doesn't understand like you say he is to ruff so you will need to supervise and sometime stop play and give breaks. You also need to help support the older dog to know she can get away. Make sure you walk them together and train them get your spoo a job and a way to get exersice like agility, flyball, frisbee, herding, swimming, biking etc.


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## FunkyPuppy (Jan 27, 2011)

Lol i have a 'teapot yorkie' or 'petshop silky' of 4-5 years that i introduced to my female spoo, and for the first two weeks he was downright SNARKY with her! All toys were his, all attention was his, all food was his, and he had ZERO interest in playing.

Now they are besties. They have near-identical energy levels and he (zorro) has been a key part of teaching bite inhibition. When she pesters or bites too hard, he wallops her. Pups need that sort of correction from older dogs. 

They'll work it out.


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## FunkyPuppy (Jan 27, 2011)

Double post. Admin?


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## Rocketagility (Apr 27, 2010)

Sure they will work it out I only worry about the larger dog hurting the smaller dog by accident. Years ago I had a new pup that would run and jump onto my older dog and she hit him the wrong way and broke her leg. A total freak accident but it was very costly so I now try and prevent to much ruff play. And to be honest there is nothing wrong with some obedience.


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## FunkyPuppy (Jan 27, 2011)

Shrug... i don't have a 'traditional' sized yorkie, i have a much more sturdy-sized rescue that some young girl bought from a puppy shop and gave up to a shelter at 5 1/2 months. I've never had to worry about his bones being bothered.

I am well aware of such things called obedience... as a professional in the dog world, i apply training religiously. however, i am more inclined to allow my adult dog to apply a sharp bite when Bonzai steps out of line, rather than chase them all over, tut-tutting when Bonzai nips too hard.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

A 4 pound dog is at risk of injury from a spoo puppy - and I am always a bit uneasy about the "let them sort it out" advice. Too much risk of bullying, and of dogs learning snarky behaviour for my liking. Does your Yorkie have a safe place - a crate, perhaps - where she can be undisturbed? I would be supervising all play, and intervening when it gets to rough or exuberant. Make sure the pup meets plenty of well socialised dogs to teach him good canine manners, and in time I am sure they will become excellent friends - but perhaps not until he has grown out of some of his puppy bounciness!


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## JE-UK (Mar 10, 2010)

Pepperdine Paul said:


> Kobe is a calm Spoo but when playtime with Sophie occurs (supervised always) he can get a little too heavy footed for her and he sometimes nips and barks at her. She is super calm but will stand up for herself when he becomes too rough.


As long as he is honouring her corrections, I would just monitor. If he's blowing past her objections, and forcing her to escalate all the time, I'd step in. Perhaps he could wear a short leash in the house, to allow speedy enforcements of time-outs if he gets too rough?


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## caboodles (Jan 7, 2011)

I believe an important thing to ensure they are getting along is to make sure Kobe always stays in a calm state, and doesn't go over into crazymode.

I remember Winston used to get SOOO excited when little yorkies would come over, to the point where he would easily be able to hurt them without even being aware of his force. to him, little dogs represented excitement. Basically, I worked on him and getting him to ALWAYS be calm so he wouldn't scare the little ones aware. If he got excited and crazy, I would remove him from the situation area, and get him to sit or lie down until the point where he was able to relax himself. Afterwards, he would approach the yorkie with a totally different energy and now they all get along wonderfully. 

I think it's very important in the long run because yorkies and little dogs are so fragile and can easily be fractured by a bigger dog trying to play with them!


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## Pepperdine Paul (Jun 30, 2011)

fjm said:


> A 4 pound dog is at risk of injury from a spoo puppy - and I am always a bit uneasy about the "let them sort it out" advice. Too much risk of bullying, and of dogs learning snarky behaviour for my liking. Does your Yorkie have a safe place - a crate, perhaps - where she can be undisturbed? I would be supervising all play, and intervening when it gets to rough or exuberant. Make sure the pup meets plenty of well socialised dogs to teach him good canine manners, and in time I am sure they will become excellent friends - but perhaps not until he has grown out of some of his puppy bounciness!


Sophie (Yorkie) does have a crate which she loves and when I'm gone for some time they are both crated next to each other and while they sleep during the night. Its weird, they are gentle in the house but once they are outside my Spoo gets a little too rough. I always separate them and tell the pup "No" or "Too Rough". As he is 12 weeks old now I've been taking him around to Home Depot, Lowes and other hardware place to meet people but only while he is in the cart. Don't want him to walk in their yet till he gets his rabies vaccine at 16 weeks but does have 3 rounds of Parvo and DMPP shots already. Thanks for the advice and will always be supervising there play together.


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## Trillium (Sep 1, 2009)

When I got Betty Jo and Jenny we had an older spoo Sport as well. I was concerned that they might drive him nuts. So I made sure he had several safe places to go where puppies weren't allowed. If they got too crazy I'd pick them up flip them on their backs and cuddle them in. I wouldn't let them down again till they were calm. If Sport happened to growl at one or correct them himself that was ok too. Though I made sure that didn't get out of hand either. They ended up as the best of friends. As a bonus I also have the cuddliest spoos around that will happily cuddle for hours


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## Rocketagility (Apr 27, 2010)

You are holding your dog back because of a rabies vaccine? That is just crazy the chance of your dog getting rabies from a rabid animal when you are attatched to the dog on a leash in a location like Home Depot is like a zillion to one. Look the CDC says only 1-2 people die from rabies per year in the US: CDC - Rabies in the U.S. - Rabies

Your dog needs to be socilized from 8-16 weeks old is the most important time period so get your dog out and don't miss this critial time.

Read this sight also:
Puppy Vaccinations vs Socialization

{Sophie (Yorkie) does have a crate which she loves and when I'm gone for some time they are both crated next to each other and while they sleep during the night. Its weird, they are gentle in the house but once they are outside my Spoo gets a little too rough. I always separate them and tell the pup "No" or "Too Rough". As he is 12 weeks old now I've been taking him around to Home Depot, Lowes and other hardware place to meet people but only while he is in the cart. Don't want him to walk in their yet till he gets his rabies vaccine at 16 weeks but does have 3 rounds of Parvo and DMPP shots already. Thanks for the advice and will always be supervising there play together.}


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## Fond of Poodles (Feb 1, 2011)

We teach our dogs an "All Done or Leave it" command to address the "calm down" period. Usually taught by leashing the pup so I have some control, saying "all done". Then following it up with some basic training such as sit and down (or in the case of a show dog, stand, free stack and some gaiting exercises). I've had dogs who continue to be over exuberant right up to a year or more. Some dogs are just rougher than others (not mean, just excitable). I allow the "picked on" dog to correct the pup, but if the correction isn't being respected, then I take over using basic training cues mentioned above. Training with the distraction of another dog is challenging sometimes, but results in a better trained dog that I can work with rather than one who won't listen while there are other dogs around. 

It doesn't sound like they won't be friends, just that puppy needs to learn some limits, lol.


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