Advice Please (Staffy / B Collie)

We’ve just come back from a weekend by the sea, us and our friends with the little Staffy pup, Lily (11 mnths)

90% of the time they all play together brilliantly, (Lily has been coming to visit us since she was tiny) but, on the beach on Sunday, Lily was trying to get a bosted ball off Tia (8 yr old Border Collie), Tia growled as she normally does(it’s how she plays with Pip) and Lily went for her, Tia returned fire and a short (only a few seconds) scrap ensued. They both stopped when shouted and 2 minutes later were playing again!! – No damage done.
But it did make me think about what might happen when Lily is an adult. She will presumably be able to do a lot of damage to either Tia or Pippin and I wondered what we could do to prevent it?
The trouble is that Lily has some strange attraction to Tia, and Tia is getting a grumpy old lady!! Lily will always try to get near to her and lay by her and sniff her mouth!! And Tia doesn’t ‘feel the love’ in return and when she ‘smiles’ at Lily to warn her off, Lily is increasingly taking it as a sign for a squabble.
Any tips on how to make Tia a little more tolerant in her old age would be appreciated and also how to make Lily understand that when Tia says no, it is not her starter for ten!

I know little or nothing about the Staffy breed, but now feel I ought to learn a little, if only in the interests of safety and friendship for both the dogs and the humans!!

Please can someone also either confirm or dispel a ‘what THEY say’ - that is, that if a Staffy locks it’s jaw when in a fight, it is unable to release??
Please can I stress that this is DEFINITELY NOT a Staffy bash – Lily is a beautiful and affectionate dog (soft as muck) we all think the world of her, and I would like to keep it that way, that is why I ask for help.

With Best Regards, Heather x

not really sure what to tell you,, i would think alot of the problem comes from the fact tia is old and lilly young, she wants to play but tia doesnt,, lilly cant understand this.
maybe you could have a time out place for lilly if she gets too rough,, just tell her tilly enough and put her in her time out place for 5 minutes, she may learn not to be so boistrous with tia??

other than that im not sure what else you could do,, try pm'ing one of the staffy owners for advice, saz,, kerrie, and there are loads more, they can prob help more than me

x x x x

as far as I know its a myth that they lock jaws.

We went through a stage like that with Star and put it down to a teenage stage and Star pushing her luck. She did settle down again If she acted like this she was put on her lead and taken away from the situation and if she was good she was praised.

hi there, as nemosmummy says, perhaps a timeout is a good idea when she is getting too much for poor tia. Perhaps try and play a game with her to get her attention off tia.

Firstly, your dog is already old enough to cause damage, and secondly, NO dog can lock its jaw! its a silly myth, the only creature in the world that can lock its jaw i believe is a crocodile!
The only issue being that ur dog is capable of causing alot of damage.

The only thing i can suggest is not to intervene if they scrap unless you really have to. Alot of the time dogs will not cause damage, but when a human interferes it quickly escalates. Try not to shout or hit the dogs but let them sort it out themselves. It sounds like Lilly needs to kno once and for all that tia is in charge and wont be having any of lillys nonsense.

There are a couple of things u CAN do if u REALLY have to intervene, ie the dogs are really proper going for it.
If its inside, or u have a bucket of water spare, throw water on them... ive found the dogs water bowl to be sufficient!

another method is to grab the more dominant dog ( ie the one that seems to be the most aggressive) by the back legs just under the thighs, not the ankles and pull backwards, this will take the dog off balance and they will let go of the other dog, giving u a chance to pull the dog away and put it on lead. If the other dog does not stop after u have done this then the same treatment is needed for the other... jus hope u have 2 people spare.

you could also try teach lilly the 'enough' command, so she knows that playtime is over when u say it is. So when tia is not wanting lilly near her anymore u can say 'enough' and she should cease. this will take alot of practise and u will need to practise with it at any moments u get, preferably start with initiating games at home and then saying 'enough' and ending the game.

hope this helps, i might be completely wrong

Thanks for the reply, Lily is our friends dog so she only comes up to play probably once a week, it has been suggested that they need to spend more time together, don't know if this would help? what do you think?

Thanks Carole, I had hoped it was, but you know how people are where Staffies are concerned, sporned by the devil and all that rubbish!! so I just thought I'd be sure of the facts before I tell them to go jump

Jenny, many thanks for all the information, as I say Lily is our friends dog and she comes to play probably once a week or so, but we have started camping for the odd weekend so they will be 'living' together for a couple of days then not see each other for a little while.
I have to say that Kev is doing a sterling job with her training and she broke off immediately he spoke, as did Tia, maybe if it happens again we should leave it for a tiny while to see what happens! not comfortable with that really but if it helps then we'll give it a go.

Like I said before, Lily is a lovely dog and I would hate to think that Tia might spoil her presonality if we can do something to stop the 'bickering' I'll certainly tell Kev about teaching Lily 'enough', though I can't help thinking I should do something with Tia to try and make her more patient.

Typical really, we also have a black lab, Pip who looooooves Lily and would be grateful for the attention, but Lily seems to prefer Tia (perhaps 'cos Tia doesn't shove her nose up Lil's bum like Pip eh?)

i do a time out with tyson , if he gets a bit much .he gets a time out in another room untill he calms down works a treat with him

Thanks for the reply Deefin, it has only happened the once, but got us to thinking what if? like the paranoid parents we are, but we are great friends and will try owt to sort it out

Hiya H. Well,my only offering here is with my previous dog (a grumpy old lady who didn't like other dogs) when we brought Cassie home. Of course Cassie was full of it when she reached a few months old, but grumpy old Sacha didn't want any of it at times. She would bare her teeth and snap at Cassie as she leapt over her but Cassie always managed to get out of the way. They would often have an "argument" where Sacha would growl, snarl and snap at her and Cassie eventually retaliated, just like tia and lily did, but she soon backed down and consequently knew her place in the pack. I think your Tia is a soft touch in Lily's eyes and when Tia told her to go away and leave her alone, Lily just thought she would try her luck and see if she could be boss, and I'm sure if you had left it, Tia is far too friendy a dog to have really attacked Lily physically, I think it was all show, as animals do in the wild with the boistrous youngsters, they have to be put in their place don't they, and even though it looks to be very aggressive it is just their way of showing authority, in this case I think anyway.

Cassie was very friendly with another g.s.d. puppy at the stables and they would play and play every morning when I did the horse. Well, one day, we were at the muck heap and Cassie was playing with another youngster who was also in our yard, and the day before, the other g.s.d. puppy had pinned this one to the ground and looked like it was going to kill it. Well, Cassie must have seen the look on her mate's face as he came running over to them making a bee-line for this pup again. Cassie got hold of her mate by putting her whole mouth over his and growling very softly but very loudly. We were gobsmacked and we didn't know what to do and I had never seen her do anything like that before, but the other girl who owned the poor dog said no, just leave them, she's telling him off, as he was going to attack the other puppy again! So we did, and she let go, and he walked off with his tail between his legs, and the next day they were the best of pals again! See? Dogs have their own language and have to have a pack order, and Tia, for the time being anyway, must be the boss as she is the elder and Lily has to submit. That may change of course in years to come, but if it had been my Cassie she would have told it off in no uncertain terms without hurting one hair on her, but Tia is just too nice to do that I think, but she was trying. I don't think any dog would hurt a baby of 11mnts old, and I have seen that in Sacha with Cassie, it's when Lily gets older that the trouble might start, so maybe it might be best to let them sort it out for themselves whilst she's young, she may get the message that she's not going to be boss over Tia?

This may all be wrong with sbt's but that's all I can say to help you, my experience of this in g.s.d's! Sorry if I've garbled on as usual but hope some of it helps anyway!x