'Teaching' dogs

Recently (on a different thread) I was criticised for allowing my dogs to teach Zeff about behaving correctly.

Now he is now 8 months, so it is still early days, but he seems to be shaping up to be a great 'teaching' dog.
He sees about 3-4 new pups and younger dogs each week and I 'use' him to interact with them, for example - this week has been 2 x JRTs (11 and 15 weeks) a Huntaway x (12 weeks) a Working cocker (8 months) and a Rhodesian Ridgeback (15 weeks).

I am really pleased with how he deals with each dog as an individual, adjusting his level of play to suit the individual, although I stayed with him while he was playing with the 11wk JRT as it was the same size as his head and I did not want him to accidentally hurt it.

However - I feel a lot of that is due to what he learns from the other dogs - so - what do you think? How much do you allow your dogs to 'teach' each other?

I think this is a great idea and also gets the dogs used to each other ..............and how to behave................

It is what parents do to children teach them how to behave and then interact ith other children.

Do you believe it is much the same?

I believe that Dogs can be the finest teachers to other Dogs, it stands to reason, they are the same species.
If the encounters with other dogs are presented in a safe way, ie the teaching dog isn't aggressive then it can only be a good thing.
Dogs can teach other dogs in a way we as humans can't.
From a very young age we have socialised Malaika with all types of dogs in different situations and so far we have a very sociable girl who is learning doggy manners.
We will be relying on her to teach our next pup, alongside us.

..... dizzy rip was my first 'teacher' orla and flea are too... in fact to be fair Flea has been Tupacs idol from the start..one look from him is all it takes..it is a very special relationship flea takes it upon himself to teach all pups at the practise and we used to spend ages watching them rather than working lol.

... Tassle.... Tupac is brilliant with pups it is a csv thing but so is when mature not taking too kindly to 'adult strangers' so it may change with zeff...hope not

My first dogs taught me about dogs... and from then on the resident dog has always taught the incomer manners.
For socialisation and doggy ettiquette - what other way is there than to use a good older dog?
Dogs watch each other, and pick up what is expected. Unfortunately they can also sometimes teach the stuff you don`t want as well. Like how to open doors.

I believe the reason why I found my Patterdale Terrier easier was due to my lab teaching him and keeping him in check.

Our old pointers were perhaps a little too strict with the series of Guide Dog puppies - they really didn't like them when they were tiny, ill-mannered whippersnappers. The puppies generally weren't even allowed in their bed for the first week or so!

Daisy would growl most ferociously at any puppy who tried to jump all over her, and it wasn't an empty threat. They soon learned to be respectful, although we didn't ever intentionally let it come to snapping. Sometimes they got a nip, though, because we were too slow to defuse the situation.

Phoebe you had to watch more, because she was very bad at giving warning signals. She would sit there whilst a puppy licked her face, looking uncomfortable but not growling or even raising the lip, and then suddenly snap. Once the guide dogs were no longer very little babies, though, they were accepted into the pack, as long as they remembered who was boss. Overall, I think the pointers were good role models for the puppies, certainly taught them to respect their elders. Sometimes it did break your heart in the early days, though, when you could see that the little puppy just missed his littermates and wanted to cuddle up to another dog, and just wasn't allowed to.

Now our oldest dog is a guide dog pup, only 8 months old so not a great disciplinarian at all to our new puppy (8 weeks old). She is not really teaching him any proper manners, like 'don't climb on other dogs' heads', 'don't sneak up and use another dog as a trampoline', 'don't chew tails that don't belong to you' and so forth. She either starts playing with him, or just sits there and lets him do what he wants. The only thing she reacts to is him trying to steal her toys from her mouth - that is not at all tolerated. We'll definitely have to get him some socialisation time with an older, calmer dog who will let him know what's OK and what's not.
We're hoping, though, that when the pup is old enough to go out for walks, Rosie will show him to stay fairly close and not run off hunting. She's very good off the lead and you never lose sight of her.

I agree that it is important for older dogs to teach the littlies the ways of doggy behaviour, we have tried to socialise our pup with as many dogs as we can, only one SBT was a nightmare and ringfenced him and another rather large springer nearly flattened him, but on the whole i believe the lessons from other dogs are a great way for them to learn.

Rolo seems to be pretty good at gauging other older dogs too he tries to play and moves away when/if they are not happy and will poss back if they then seem more interested. If they tell him off then he will learn from it.

I think its great & allow it as much as i can, I use Flynn on all my dog walks to teach my "walkers" etc.

I also use flynn & nellie with dog aggression dogs with great success

Who criticised?

I think it's the perfect way. We used Sadie to help teach Louie bite inhibition, he bit her in play and not us. They also provide competition in training - makes them want to please more.

I've took Louie out on many a walk - he'll have ran up to a dog with a stick, tried to take the stick of said dog and got snapped at - when the owners apologised, I said no need, he'll learn better if a dog teaches him (however if he meets his CS friend I always tell her "be carefull - he's not insured yet" as a joke)

He's approached certain dogs in a way they didnt like and the dog has told him and he changes his body language. Benjie has taught him that not all dogs like to be approached as he is a behavioural case we have (as well as teaching Louie a few bad habits - like barking!)

There are some things people cant catch at a precise moment and even us obssessed dog lovers miss, so another dog is perfect to get in there and stop certain behaviours before we even notice them happening.

Sadie helped us house train Louie - we did it on purpose, I thought that if we had a female then Louie would go to the toilet outside - inexpensive as she is "mine" and works a treat.

Whoever criticised you obviously had their reasons but if you find that what most of us are doing, best for Zeff then carry on, it's not hurting him and he looks brilliant.