Aggressive Play ???

We've just recently added a new cavalier puppy to our family, she 3 mo's. old and Jato is almost 10 mo's. old. My question is this: I always supervise them when they are together, and I have noticed that the young puppy will pounce on Jato with her mouth wide open and those little teeth chomp down on him. They do it during play, but sometimes she will watch him and then just fly across the room and "get him" when he is just laying on the floor chewing a toy, and minding his own business. Is this typical behavior? I try to distract her with toys etc. Jato is such a laid back guy, he doesn't even jump up on the couch to escape. Bless him, he really loves her.

Sounds pretty normal to me, he'll soon tell her when it hurts, that's how they learn. I am dog sitting a Scottie dog for two days, going back tomorrow, and it's even harder to watch play fighting when the teeth are so big on the Scottie! But only a little yelp once and they have been happy playing rough all day!!

That's pretty normal; but at the same time she has a fairly tolerant older pal. Still Jato is only a puppy himself; so is likely to put up with more than an older dog would. Nonetheless, according to Ian Dunbar's recent excellent seminar in Dublin she has about 4-6 more weeks and then he will definitely let her know her puppy license is revoked and she had better start being a lot more polite. :lol: It is probably better to just let them interact and not keep trying to distract her (unless he is getting exasperated) as she will benefit a lot from having an older dog setting boundaries; that includes for being too lively and getting tiresome. If she doesn't learn to control her own behaviour through him then it puts more work on your side to do this -- a dog is a better teacher and it takes work off your shoulders!

I would agree with this, Pippin learned a lot more from Gus than I could ever teach him.

I was nervous about this too with Rex and Chloe as they are quite different in size and build even though there is only about 3 months difference in their age.
Chloe is really tiny and Rex is a very large build, and when they started to play like yours (with mouths open, lots of pouncing and scary noises!) I was terrified that Chloe might get hurt.
It is amazing to see how Rex has learned to be so gentle with her. Even though they roll around on the floor and nip and pull at each other, he seems to know exactly how far he can go with her.
So I wouldnt worry too much, I think Jato will let your new pup know if she has gone too far and she will learn very quickly to be a bit more gentle at playtime

Thank you all for the great advice. I've never had 2 dogs before, so I just wanted to make sure all was OK. I will let them sort it out then. I have to admit, they keep us laughing all day long with their antics.:jmp::jmp:

Mine do exactly the same - our youngest is 6mths, the older 10 mths - lots of play fighting, and low growling in a playful way - it does reduce slightly. Our little one keeps trying to grab the eldest's ears - vry amusing. I only step in if it gets really noisy.

I wondered the same thing when we added Murphy to our family in May this year. He is almost 3 and Holly was 10 months. Both are very exciteable and play with their mouths open... but it really is just playing and they both have a good time. If Holly cant be bothered playing anymore, she lets Murphy know, and vice versa. Like Karlin said, a dog is a great teacher, they have both learned to gage each others moods as well which is nice. With time they will learn how to handle each other.