GSD teaching new puppy aggression?
 

My 3-year old GSD shows aggression when we are meeting new dogs. I am getting a new puppy (Chihuahua) and I am wondering how to make sure my new guy doesn't pick up any of my GSD's habits when greeting others.

I now put my GSD on leash for all greetings because he is hard to predict, great with many dogs and then aggressive with others...I tried various things but now I just put him on leash and we are fine- he is well trained so i always have a chance to leash him before we do any greetings.

Do you think my new puppy will learn to greet aggressively from my older dog? What can I do to prevent this?

My youngest dog learned a lot from my 2 older dogs, including some bad habits. You really need to train each dog individually.

Your new puppy can definitely pick up both good and bad behaviors from your older dog. One of the many reasons I never add a new puppy to my house until I've worked thru all the issues with my older dogs. I have a hard enough time with one dog with issues and don't need to add another to the mix.

Specially because generally dogs behave the way you described from fear issues and your gsd teaching the new dogs to also be fearful may be an even bigger mess than you have now.

Id be more concerned at this point with how your GSD deals with your new dog. That could be its own problem, never mind picking up bad habits from the GSD.

That's a good point. Devasting if a dog you knew had issues with other dogs killed your new puppy.

Maybe better to 'fix' your current dog before adding another?

Very good point.

My wife's dog likes to bark at everything under the sun. So when I was first walking Grim, we took 1-2 walks with the whole pack to get him OK with walks. After that, I stopped walking him with the girls because I didn't want him picking up bad manners. Now, I find him trying to calm my wife's dog when they're out in the yard and she's barking at nothing. Anytime you add in a new pup, it's a good idea to look at any 'bad manners' with your other dogs that you don't want the new one to pick up. Still, Grim only barks rarely. He's always looked to see what the girls are barking at (nothing) then walks away or blocks my wife's dog until she stops barking. (Note-she wasn't like this before, but has become this way in her old age, which is why we haven't been too hard on her about it)

I was worried about my new pup picking up my older dog's non-dog friendly ways. My solution was to put the pup in doggy daycare three times a week. She loves playing with other dogs and is always meeting new ones.