Quote:
Originally Posted by kbreck  My 13 year old Yorkie, Susie ... Turnip has started growling back and occasionally swatting at her with his paw. |
It sounds to me as though Turnip wants to play and Susie-the-senior doesn't, including that she may know better.
When my late little Katy was just a pup, a nine-year old male yorkie stayed with us for a month. If she wasn't sleeping, Katy wanted to play; Butch loved to fetch, that was until Katy came along.
That last couple years of her life, we visited a family that had two larger dogs--one +/- 40 lbs; the other +/- 70 pounds. The larger dogs played together well, albeit sometimes rough. They wanted to play with Katy, too, but she wanted nothing to do with them.
The paw. The two larger dogs often "pawed" each other--sometimes toward the face; other times on the back. The larger one put a paw on Katy's back once, eliciting a reaction I had never seen from my little one. Believe she was both startled and scared. I was already inches from her, but she gave me the "I need you" glare.
We just visited the larger, younger dogs. Imagine it will take some training for your 70 pound youngster to treat Susie as something other than an equal. And then for Susie to trust Turnip.