So we're going up to my parents house for the holidays next week. My parents have a 12-year old soft-coated wheaten terrier (Murphy). I grew up with him, but here's the issue: we never really socialized him. He occasionally met other dogs, particularly those in my family and he was fine, but the combination of his age/under-socialization makes him fairly grumpy. This is especially true when we bring Kai up (she's only met him once). Being an 8-month husky who has been extremely well socialized, she immediately wants to run up and play with him.

This does not sit will with Murphy and he has snapped at her to let her know not to do that. Usually when a dog does that Kai backs off and realizes not to do that. However, when we were up in August, she lashed back at him a bit when he snapped. We had to separate them. Now this occurred a couple times when my Dad tried to feed them treats in the general area (trying to tell him not to do that!)

But Murphy is territorial as well as many terriers are. Do any of you have recommendations as how to approach this kind of situation? I obviously don't want them to fight a lot when we're up for Christmas next week.

We're dogsitting a 10yr old border collie right now who is a bit undersocialized too. Gus is 11mths, and also very playful, and thinks everyone is a playmate whether they want to be or not! The border collie also snapped at Gus to let him know that he wasn't going to play with him. Not sure if Gus was fighting back, or just defending himself. Either way, we broke it up quickly. No harm done. After that, every time that Gus would approach the border collie in a playful manner (pawing or putting his head on his shoulder), I would give Gus a firm "ah-ah" or start walking towards them to get in between, and then give Gus the "back" command to move away.

Since it's only a temporary situation, our goal is just to live in peace for the week, and not to have them be bestfriends. So we have basically discouraged any prolonged eye contact between the two by saying "ah-ah" or "hey!" loudly to get them to focus on humans instead. If they did focus on humans, they were rewarded with pets and "good boys". No treats because Gus is a food guarder. We also rewarded with "good boys" if they sniffed each other, and then just walked away and ignored each other. Gus no longer tries to play with the border collie, and also respects the border collie's growl very quickly now. In fact, there is no more growling from the border collie!

If Kai is calm, does Murphy still react to him? Or does he just not like puppiness in his face? Luckily for us, Gus is not territorial about anything. He shares toys, humans, and our bed (haha) with the border collie without issue. It's just food that we have to be careful about.

When Kai is calm, Murphy is generally fine too. I took them for walks together just by myself and they were fine together. Murphy would even sometimes show a desire to play with Kai outside, which was great to see

The situations where things tend to go bad:

If they would get treats near each other or Kai would try to steal some of Murphy's food from his bowl.

When Kai would jump all over Murphy very excited.

If my Mom paid an inordinate attention to Kai (Murphy's VERY protective over her)

If we're able to keep an eye on Kai to make sure she does not harass Murphy, I think it will be OK. I just don't want it to cause too much stress.

We have the same situations where things can go bad too. We can't leave ANY dog food or treats out. Gus, generally, does not get human food. So i don't think he sees that as something for him to guard. If we are eating, we don't let either of them approach us. If they do, we stand up and give them the "back" command.

We have to feed them completely separately, and KEEP them separated until they're done and both (Gus especially) are very calm. I literally wait until Gus is practically falling asleep from being so bored before I let them both out of their spaces haha. They can share water, so that's a good thing.

If I give one attention, the other will usually not be too far away, and I'll call them over and give them both attention together. Gus seems to be ok about this. But when i get home, he is usually very excited to see me, and if i pet the border collie first, he will rush over and bury his head in my hand. Not in a protective or even jealous way really. Almost like a baby-ish way. I generally don't really reward clinginess, but I do want him to know that when i give attention to another dog, it doesn't mean it's taking any away from him too. So i am hoping that this will curb any jealousy he may develop in the future.

If kai seems to be the hyper one, maybe you could keep her on a leash at the beginning until they've warmed up to each other, or even just let her leash drag in case you ever need to pull her away quickly. Take all food off the floor, and maybe even toys, so there is nothing to fight over. Any new dog that is going to come into our house, I always make them meet outside first even though Gus is not territorial. In the off chance that he decides to be one day, I'd prefer neutral territory. And it sounds like you need to have a little talk with the humans of the family so they know all the rules of how to treat the dogs haha. My husband was SUPER relaxed about it on the first day we had both, even after i repeatedly warned him that Gus WILL guard his food, even the ROOM that the food is kept in! There was a fight between the dogs. Again, no harm done. But that made him smarten up pretty quickly after that little incident haha.