Three puppies playing is one being aggressive or playing ?

Hello everyone

As you know we are puppysitting Kato, a male cocker spaniel a couple of months younger than Archie.

Kato was neutered about 10 days ago.

This morning the dogs played fine, but when Ziggy and Archie were having a nap Kato came up to me so I cuddled him, Archie saw and then Kato went over to their bed and Archie started baring his teeth and making odd noises then halfheartedly went for Kato. I grabbed Archie off kato, put all dogs in separate rooms for about 10min to cool off and they were ok..

Then later this afternoon Kato was playing with Ziggy and overwhelmed him a bit (he's quite clumsy and ziggy is only tiny) so Ziggy growled and snapped at him - and Archie intervened, again going for Kato

What shall I do? How shall i treat them? Any tips to avoid fights?

Kato is staying till Sunday, but if it gets really bad I can ring his owner's OH who will come and collect him.

What do you guys reckon?

BTW Archie is almost 11 months, not neutered, and Ziggy is around 20 weeks.

These are just my thoughts and you don't have to heed them and others may have differing advice.
Firstly you should never single the 'new temporary' puppy out for affection in front of the others...Archie will see this as a challange to his position.

If it was me, unless there was a real problem and a chance one of the dogs would be hurt I would watch from a distance and not intervene, when you get a number of dogs together you always get minor skirmishes and they usually sort it out ...they are all puppies still and Archie is the natural top dog being older and entire and he should put the others in their place.

Thanks Mini.
So shall I just ignore Kato then? They seem to be ok now, Kato was cleaning Ziggy's ears earlier and they all had a nap together...

While you have got all three together for this few days I would try not to single anyone of them out
If you need to do this remove the puppy first before paying it attention, but remember even if you do this there may be jostling whenever you put it back and the others will know 'something has happened' because the removed one will smell of you when it returns. Yes I would ignore Kato don't feel you have to give him attention because the owner is not there..he will be happy to have playmates and to settle into the natural order of things

Thanks Mini

Will let you know how it goes

Great advice from Mini - good luck Tuti - hope it all works out ok and you're not tearing your hair out by Sunday....

Thanks Vicki

Update today - they all seem a lot happier and calmer, no growling or rudeness from any of them today so that's good I think they will survive until tomorrow!

I think Archie was trying to protect Ziggy - I noticed that when him and Kato are playing a rough game of tug or wrestling, and Ziggy tries to get involved, that's when Archie starts being horrible to Kato.

So If they start playing, I just pick Ziggy up to stop him getting involved, and so far so good