Today, in addition to having
Technician appointments and Doctor appointments, I went into a patient’s room
with Dr. Kris. The client had just
adopted a new Golden Retriever puppy (whom she named Jagger), and she brought
Jagger in for his first checkup as well as to ask Dr. Kris questions about his
behavior and relationship with her other dog (named Jake). Jagger is about 8 weeks old, and his owner
said that if he isn’t sleeping, he’s extremely hyper (like a normal
puppy). She said that most of Jagger’s energy
is directed on her, which has been wearing her out lately. She also stated that recently, Jagger has
started to focus a lot of energy on Jake as well, and she’s worried about how
their relationship is going to play out.
Jagger has been taking toys from Jake and starting to snoop around/eat
from Jake’s food bowl, but other than that he’s been fairly mellow (i.e. he’ll
be hyper one minute and then sleeping the next), and Jake hasn’t retaliated yet
when his toys or food have been taken.
Dr. Kris said that of course, all of this can obviously still change; Jagger
is still a young puppy and could become even more hyper, and Jake can still
decide one of these days that he won’t tolerate Jagger taking is things
anymore. She said that when Jake decides
that, he’s most likely to do a warning snap at Jagger to get him to back off,
and usually, that will work and Jagger will stop what he’s doing for a little
while. Right now Jagger doesn’t really
understand right from wrong/what he can and can’t do, and the fact that his
owner and Jake and his only playmates make it more difficult and tiring for
them as well. The owner said that she is
going to take Jagger to a doggie day care for half a day for twice a week so he
can be socialized with other dogs. On a
health note, Jagger looked perfectly healthy after Dr. Kris checked him over;
he has already received his distemper and parvovirus vaccines as well as his
booster shot, and he received his Kennel Cough vaccine today.
One of the major that Dr. Kris
focused on during this puppy conversation/explanation was food. Since Jagger is hanging around Jake a lot
(and his food bowl) and taking his toys, Dr. Kris said that this could cause
Jake to get very protective of his food (she said that dogs get more protective
over their food rather than anything else because they know/realize food is a
scarce resource). Therefore, not only
will he get protective of his food when Jagger is there, but whenever anyone is
by his food bowl (again, there aren’t any problems so far, but if this
behavioral cycle between Jake and Jagger continues, Jake’s behavior could
change to something like this). Of
course, Jake is on adult food and Jagger is on puppy food. Dr.
Kris said giving a little bit of extra-yummy food with their regular food will
help both dogs understand that it’s a good thing when someone is by their food
dish, rather than making them feel like they have to protect their dish. She also said to leave them alone while they
eat, and then take their dish away after eating for the same reason; so that
they don’t ever get the feeling that they need to protect their bowl. Since Jagger is a pretty new member to the
family, she told the owner to start having Jake and Jagger eat in separate rooms
for a while so that again, they don’t get protective of their food, and
therefore don’t hurt each other. Once
both of them are on dog food, she said that they can eat in the same room again. All of these steps can help prevent conflicts
and ill-feelings between the two dogs, but Dr. Kris also warned and said that
if they do have any conflicts or spiffs, not to interfere and let them sort it
out themselves because they will then need to learn how to deal with and
understand each other. The only time the
owner should interfere is if it looks like one of them (more so Jagger, since
he’s the puppy) is going to get hurt, but since Jake knows Jagger is just a
puppy, he shouldn’t try to do anything to harm him other than to warn him to
stop whatever he’s doing; therefore, Dr. Kris simply advised to her to keep an eye
on them just in case, but to not interfere unless it starts to get serious.
Jagger, the Golden Retriever puppy.
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