I'm glad to have found this sight.
so here's my dilemma:

we recently "adopted" a 3 y.o. australian cattle dog(acd) mix - though i don't know what the other "mix" is, if there is any since it looks pretty acd to me. however, we have 2 other dogs - an 8yo female pug and a 7yo male boston terrier. we've had both since puppies. all 3 are fixed.

the acd is a well trained dog, obedient, very friendly with people, and generally good with the other 2 dogs, when everyone is "cool" and just hanging out. Even when the other 2 dogs get excited, the acd tends to stay calm, which is great.

however, she has growled a couple of times to the other dogs, especially the pug. yesterday she got in a good nip/bite on the pug, but didn't break skin. this happened without any warning or visible provocation. the pug, BT, the acd and my wife were all outside in the garden. everyone was cool, until this event happened. now the pug is really afraid of the acd when she's up and about.

another behavior we've noticed is that when the acd is next to my wife, she'll growl when the other dogs get close, though she doesn't do that with me. She can be next to me and doesn't bother the other dogs when come around.

we've only had the acd for a few days, it's kept in a pen to seperate it from the 2 older dogs. and we're keeping her on a leash when we take her out of the pen to "be with the pack" and, of course, for walks. btw, we all seem to walk together peacefully.

is this "normal"? after the "nip", we're not sure if we can keep the acd, though we'ld really like to. what can we do to make the 'integration' smoother and that no one gets hurt? from what we've been reading this sounds like a dominance issue and that it's common with australian cattle dogs. how long should we "wait" to see if it's going to work or not?

Well I would say first off be careful, anytime you mix small dogs and large that do not know each other, it usually isnt going to be good for the small dog if a fight ensues.

ACD's are a tough breed to own, but very intellegent. They can be protective and dog aggressive, with a grown dog you do not know any history either.

My male at 12 weeks old was already dog aggressive, he attacked a 80 lb Border Collie repeatedly, lucky the Border was not a fighter, but on the other hand we bought our ACD's for the farm and to keep stray dogs away, we had some baby goats that were killed by stray dogs and had other dogs coming into the pasture and chasing the horses. Not now, a stray or a pack of strays get the send off right quick by our two.

It may take months of supervised together time and there is a possibility it may not work out at all, I would give it some time, it takes a good while for animals to all find the place in the family.

thanks for your response. we'll give it more time. we may even have a behaviorist come out to assess things. as for other dogs, she doesn't seem aggressive with them either. on walks, she doesn't get involved and if they are being aggressive, she kinda whimpers and backs off.

i think time is really the key thing. things have mellowed out since the first day. unfortunately as time goes on, i get more attached. :???:

A dog becomes dominate because it doesn't believe it has leadership in the house. It sounds like you may have the leadership skills but your wife is not seen as a leader.

Pack leadership can be accomplished with some work. Google NILIF dog training and review that method.

Pack leadership is important regardless of breed. Did you know that Daschunds, statistically are most likely to bite? So focus on pack leadership and exercise as your treatment. Be sure to correct any growl/nip right as it happens. Do not let any of the dogs get away with dominant behavior. I designed an entire course around this as it is the most important aspect of training. Using pack leadership, I trained an aggressive rotti who is now best friends with a mini pincher next door. So forget about breed and forcus on your human pack exercising pack leadership.

Hope this helps. Stay consistent!

Chad Thompson
Professional Dog Trainer
www.VirtualDogTrainer.com