Chihuahua Pictures

Page 3

Scrappy the Chihuahua is standing outside in grass and pointing with one paw up

"Scrappy the Chihuahua Puppy at 5 months old—he really enjoys people and just loves his owners to death. Scrappy is a sweet, cute and spontaneous little Chihuahua and man, is he tough. He rules the roost and he knows it. His stance above tells it all. He is standing proud, rigid, ears perked, tail stiffly up. He is puffing himself out. Scrappy met Bruno the Boxer Puppy for the first time when he was 4 months old. Bruno the Boxer puppy was 8 weeks old, but still larger than Scrappy. Bruno walked over wanting to play with Scrappy. Scrappy suddenly, without much warning, growled and tried to bite Bruno. Bruno jumped back. This was the Boxer pup’s first encounter with a dog who didn't like him. Scrappy's owner corrected him, telling him to be nice. Bruno walked over again and Scrappy was OK for a few seconds, but without much warning tried to bite Bruno again. Once again Bruno jumped out of the way, however Scrappy quickly came back and bit the Boxer in the lip. For the first time Bruno began to bark and growl as if he was defending himself. This was the first dog the Boxer had met that didn't want to play. A month later we tried introducing the pups again.

“Nope, not going to work, Scrappy the Chihuahua still hates Bruno the Boxer Puppy. Scrappy, do you realize how small you are?? NOPE, I don't think he does."

Update: I didn't realize it at the time but this situation with Scrappy the Chihuahua and Bruno when they were puppies was handled all wrong. I, as the owner of Bruno, should have handled this differently. Here, Bruno is a small puppy meeting an aggressive dog for the first time. While it was clearly Scrappy who was the one who was initiating the aggressive behavior, Bruno should have been told to leave it alone. We as the owners of Bruno should have showed him we could handle this little dog and that he didn't have to take matters into his own hands. Instead, we let Bruno start to growl back. The behavior we created was an adult dog who is good with stable, well-adjusted dogs who do not challenge him, however Bruno will growl back at other dogs if he is challenged or if he senses any imbalance in the dog. Dogs can feel the energy coming from other dogs. They know how they are feeling. If I am at the vet’s office sitting on the bench and another dog walks in, Bruno will lie there and ignore the dog, sit up and look at it wagging his tail as if he wants to say "hi" or he will growl. I can always tell what state of mind the other dog is in by Bruno's reaction to it. If I tell Bruno to "leave it," however, he will. This is because of the strong pack leader bond I now have with him. It would just be much nicer if he ignored all dogs and didn't feel the need to challenge back or tell another dog to chill out. Dogs will often tell other dogs that they don't agree with how they are feeling. I would much rather have Bruno reliably leave that up to me and not take matters into his own hands. It goes to show how important it is to understand your dog and understand the natural instincts of dog behavior. It is the humans that create bad behaviors in their dogs and it only takes one or two instances to create a behavior we would rather not have in the future. Yes, these behaviors can be controlled, handled and even changed with the right owners, but it's so much easier to avoid them in the first place. As much as I know about dog behavior today, I am still learning something new every day.