Is my youngest becoming a bully?

Ok heres the situation. Sugar is 4 years older than Belle and is starting to move a little slower these days.

Belle is not always so nice to her anymore will attack her just for getting attention from one of us. Constantly wanting to do everything before Sugar. Just being a brat mostly. Yet Sugar still bathes her face daily and allows her to snuggle at nap time and Sugar rarely ever gets tired of the constant picking action and puts an end to it. Seems silly I know but little stuff like Sugar will be just sitting and Belle will throw her body against her making her move, then the little brat will sit down in Sugar's spot looking smug.

My husband says this is normal and for me to leave it alone. It really bothers me, why is she all of a sudden deciding to pick on the older pug?

Ohh this is interesting. Sophie, who is about a year and a half, just started this behavior with Hooligan (who is our oldest one at 8). We have just been reinforcing the fact that Sophie is the lowest one on the totem pole, with Hooli getting everything first, then Indy..etc. I'll be interested to see the responses!

I too will be interested to see what people have to say on this topic.

My personal view gleaned from reading rather than experience is that if there are heirarchy issues then the dogs should be allowed to sort it out between themselves with minimal interference from humans unless unacceptable behaviour (by which I mean fighting, not just a bit of pushiness) is going on. Once it is clear what the pecking order is then you reinforce that pecking order. I don't think it is unusual for the pecking order to change.

I know of one scenario where dominant male pug died, leaving some girls and a boy in the pack. Boy took over leadership but when a new pup was born who challenged for leadership at around age 2 the boy who had taken over leadership was quite happy (perhaps even relieved) to hand over to another, as it were.

Almost from day one Rupert has bullied Vivian a bit, at first I would stop him but as time went on I realized Viv needed to stand up for herself.
She is finally now after two yrs starting to stand up to him.
I still can't stand some of his bad behavior towards her and will step in but for the most part as long as there is no harm done then I will let Viv fight her own battles. There is a two year difference between them, Rupert is almost three and Viv is five.

It sounds like maybe with Sugar slowing down, Belle is trying to become alpha?

I can see why it would bother you to see Belle being a little brat to your sweet Sugar and you love them both. However, I don't have any suggestions other than maybe they will work it out?

I have always been inclined to let them get on with it.
Most of you will know that Hattie came to live with us as a puppy, with Daisy our Border Terrier who sadly left us in March for the great kennel in the sky.
From day one, Hattie treated Daisy as her personal heat cushion. She would push her out of her chosen place in the dog bed so that she could move into the warm place herself, she would sit on Daisy (rather than the floor) whenever she felt so inclined, and so on. Daisy never, ever complained, and she looked after this strange looking baby of hers until the day she died. I am of course aware that she had an exceptional temperament for a terrier!
When Cousin Holly was last staying here a couple of weeks ago, Hattie - for the first time ever - did exactly the same thing, walking right over Holly in the dog bed and settling down beside her, in her preferred corner. To my great surprise, Holly just accepted it, which she has never done in the past - always getting up and moving away. But again, she is a good girl and is not aggressive.
In the past, with other dogs, if things turned nasty, I would always interfere and sort any disagreements out very firmly; in this house, I am the boss! Otherwise, I let them sort the pecking order out for themselves.

We basically have always done the exact thing. Sugar does and gets everything first. Belle has always been fine with this, just waits patiently for her turn. Yet now after her turn she attacks Sugar not anything hurtful just aggrevating. Belle evens tells Sugar she has to potty and Sugar takes us to which door she has decided they will be going out.

Now when filing their nails we trade off paws, its sooo funny....one paw...one carrot...next pug please.

Sugar is a tattle tale. Anytime Belle is misbehaving in another room Sugar will get between her and us and bark and/or stare us down until we go and check on Belle. We have learned thru the years to search for the missing no-no, Belle hears us coming and hides whatever she has swiped for herself. Normally the no-no belongs to whichever family member she has been bugging for attention with very little luck. For those of you that haven't guessed already Belle has forever remained in her terrible two's, she is just so darn cute, especially when misbehaving.

The girls are so close on so many levels. I am very unhappy with this new behavior, but for now I will listen to the hubbie and see if the two of them will work things out. Maybe its normal. Maybe I'm just over protective. But it sure is hard not to reprimand Belle constantly.

While I know you aren't happy with the current behavior your girls sound adorable, I am sorry, I imagine it's making you sad to see Belle being a bully.

Nell is our pushy one in the house and she's the oldest yet when we had Hoover (who was older than her) she was pushy with him too. I think she just needs to be in charge, in general, whether she's the oldest or not. Lucy can definitely stick up for herself when she needs to so we generally let it go. We have had some fighting issues which we obviously get involved in but if it's just general dominance stuff, we let them work it out. When they start to get worked up and I think a situation may turn into a fight, Nell will often just put her front paws up on Lucy's back. My hubby often tries to get Nell to stop but I just tell him to let them go. That's their way of working out who is in charge. Lucy generally let's Nell be alpha but Lucy has a strong personality too and is stubborn about giving up the alpha spot to Nell so we've had our share of problems. Nell, too, will often give Lucy a face bath and I can almost see Lucy rolling her eyes!

It's my understanding that females are alpha dogs in dog packs. We've found this to be true. Our females succeeded each other as the oldest died off and the boys never competed for alpha. Now that we have all boys, our oldest and biggest boy is alpha. The two younger dogs do challenge him occasionally but he puts them in their place quickly. I worry when he gets much older. The two younger ones both seem to want to be alpha. Does anyone have all boys, and then the alpha passed on?

BTW, we have much less fighting with all boys! Girls are a lot more competitive.

Your Sugar sounds exactly like our Leo (also the youngest). And your Belle sound like our Chester (the oldest). Leo also has a very dominant personality and just loves to pounce on Chester for no reason, licking his ears and his pits to death. Leo also likes to yell at Chester when he wants Chester's bone, even when there are 3 unused bones lying 2 inches away. He wants what Chester has. Chester usually just takes it, or walks away, or if he's really pisssed, he'll snap at Leo.

We also do what Saira and you do which is to constantly reinforce Leo's position as third dog on the totem pole. He is very submissive about that and knows he goes last. But that training only goes so far. We still yell "Leo, stop that!" about a dozen times a day. We didn't realize how often we say that until we heard our 22 month old son start to yell, "Leo, No!" pretty much all day, too.

We've learned to live with it so long as Chester seems to be okay with it. If it gets too much, Leo has spent some "timeout" moments in his crate with a treat, a bone, and his toys. But he started to like timeout so much that he started to act out just to get a timeout. So, yep, I'm no help at all.

gimpydimp wrote:It's my understanding that females are alpha dogs in dog packs. We've found this to be true. Our females succeeded each other as the oldest died off and the boys never competed for alpha. Now that we have all boys, our oldest and biggest boy is alpha. The two younger dogs do challenge him occasionally but he puts them in their place quickly. I worry when he gets much older. The two younger ones both seem to want to be alpha. Does anyone have all boys, and then the alpha passed on?

BTW, we have much less fighting with all boys! Girls are a lot more competitive.

I've only ever had boys. Our oldest, Chester, although he is the tiny one, is also our alpha. He's 8.5 years now. I often wonder what will happen should Chester pass. Not only does he do a pretty good job keeping Bruno and Leo in line, he's pretty good at keeping Karl and I in line also. He's getting much more mellow as he ages but he was also much more stand offish even when he was young. Karl and I always said that Chester lives life on his own terms. But we have also noticed that the worst fights (the truly angry ones) are between Bruno and Leo, usually with Bruno turning into a resource guarder with Leo. I worry how the current balance will be affected if Chester is not here.

smoochieface wrote:Your Sugar sounds exactly like our Leo (also the youngest). And your Belle sound like our Chester (the oldest). Leo also has a very dominant personality and just loves to pounce on Chester for no reason, licking his ears and his pits to death. Leo also likes to yell at Chester when he wants Chester's bone, even when there are 3 unused bones lying 2 inches away. He wants what Chester has. Chester usually just takes it, or walks away, or if he's really pisssed, he'll snap at Leo.

We also do what Saira and you do which is to constantly reinforce Leo's position as third dog on the totem pole. He is very submissive about that and knows he goes last. But that training only goes so far. We still yell "Leo, stop that!" about a dozen times a day. We didn't realize how often we say that until we heard our 22 month old son start to yell, "Leo, No!" pretty much all day, too.

We've learned to live with it so long as Chester seems to be okay with it. If it gets too much, Leo has spent some "timeout" moments in his crate with a treat, a bone, and his toys. But he started to like timeout so much that he started to act out just to get a timeout. So, yep, I'm no help at all.

yeah, this is pretty much how it's been going with Sophie! She LOVES her time outs.

Izzy bullies Aggy all the time. I worried about it for awhile but when I talked to my vet she said it was normal behavior. And I've seen Aggy stick up for herself when she really wants something and Izzy backs right down so I figure she can handle herself. Plus Aggy just adores Izzy for some strange reason.