Sibling rivalry

Angus at the Shuttersmack studio. Photo by Leslie Plesser.

Rosie loves Angus, as long as he stays in his place. And as far as she is concerned, his place has no toys and no food.

Yes, we are seeing flashes of sibling rivalry. Not often--right now they are playing tug nicely, and by nicely I mean they are growling and barking at each other as they pull (and how they bark with a tug toy in their mouth I will never quite understand).  But sometimes.

We are learning that there are toys that are considered to be "high value," as the puppy class teacher would put it.  Rope tugs are ordinary value. The blue plush bull that squeaks is medium value. The knuckle bones, when we first handed them out, are high value. Rosie wanted them all for herself, and she got snappish, and we had to take the knuckle bones away for a while.

The puffy fleece toy that we bought Angus on Sunday he hasn't had a chance to play with yet. That one is extremely high value (as far as Rosie is concerned), and so it is back in the toy box, and the toy box is put away where they cannot raid it.

Last night I came home and we played tug and ran all over the snowy back yard and then, because it wasn't direly bitterly cold (it was one below zero; such an improvement over eleven below) that I snapped on the leashes and we walked around the block under the dark and starry sky.

Walking Angus is like flying a kite on a windy day--you hang tight to the string and hope it doesn't go sailing off. Rosie walks nicely at my right side, but Angus is all over the place and we both try not to step on him. Leash training is in his future, but not his immediate future; he is still just little.

Back home I started to get their kibble ready when there was a sudden and fierce altercation. I can't tell you who started it--it appeared to be mutual, and it was not friendly. Rosie went after Angus and when I got her off of him Angus went after Rosie (all 14 pounds of him). I was, briefly, terrified, and then I got angry. GO TO BED, I said, and they both zipped into their kennels and I slammed the doors.

Now what?

I finished pouring out the kibble, got Rosie out of her kennel, fed her in the kitchen with the doorways blocked, got Angus out of his kennel, fed him in the hallway, and all was peaceful.

But man oh man I had not seen that before, had not seen that coming.  In three weeks of Angus being here, there has been no food aggression. This was sudden, and this was fierce.

Our other dogs did not have this: Riley used to hide under the table when his food was being prepared (and I always suspected that in his first home something had happened to terrify him at mealtime). Toby, who was a solo dog for five years, was always pretty indifferent about food; I'd put his kibble out and he'd ignore it for hours and then in the middle of the night I would wake up to hear crunch-crunch-crunch coming from the kitchen.

But Rosie is deeply food motivated, and we have screwed up her five-year food schedule by bringing Angus into the mix.  Puppy eats first, the puppy teacher said, and so for five years Rosie was our puppy and she was fed before Riley. But now Angus is the puppy, and Rosie does not like it.

Time and vigilance. All this will improve with time and vigilance. This is the mantra of the puppy owner.