[Squiter]

Well...here I am again! Pleading to the masses for any suggestions that you may have to help with my little aggressive baby.

To recap a little from my post last week - our family has Sophie our now 11-month old female. She is unaltered at this time; however that will change after the first of the year, as she will be going in for her spay. After reading several of the articles mentioned here on YT we decided to wait until she was closer to a year old to get her spayed, but don't worry it will happen and soon.

After asking opinions as to whether to add an additional female or male puppy to our family we went with the majority opinion and added a male, Sampson, who is now ten weeks old. He will be neutered when he is old enough.

Sampson has been home for a week and what a rough and tumble week it has been!

In trying to get Sophie and Sampson acquainted we have tried to keep them together as much as possible and have been monitoring them at all times but it just turns into us repeatedly pulling him off of Sophie.

Sampson this cute little ball of fluff will growl, lunge, jump, and fling himself, whatever it takes, onto Sophie. He will grab onto her muzzle, back, tail, you name it and start biting and growling. Poor Sophie will yelp, run, and try to buck him off to no avail. He hangs on for dear life therefore requiring us to pry him off.

Sophie does know that if she can get away from him that she can jump up onto the sofa or chair and then he can not reach her. Sampson then begins to try to jump up on the sofa to get her and then bites the edge of the sofa and then just hangs on the sofa growling.

In addition, he also does not like us to hold him either. When we try to hold and pet him he may be fine for a minute or two and then he tries to jump into our face to bite. He has gotten a hold of my daughter’s cheek and my ear a couple of times.

Needless to say we do not let him get away with this behavior. We have been picking him up, making eye contact, and telling him NO in a very stern voice. When he continues this behavior we put him in his crate and ignore him. Later, we will take him out and try again…same behavior…repeat process.

Do you all still think that this is still just normal puppy behavior or is something else? Do you think that the fact that Sophie is unaltered at this time has something to do with it?

I can add that before we brought him home we did see him interact with the breeder’s male dog on two different days. He in no way treated this male the way that he is our Sophie. He would only follow and try to play nicely with her dog. I saw absolutely no aggression at that time.

So lay it on me. What do think is going on with this little guy? Are there specific things that I can try in an effort to calm him toward Sophie? He is as cute as he can be…why can’t he just get along!

Thanks again,
Jana