Hey everyone!

My parents own a 3 year old Beagle, Jake, and for the most part Jake and Rory get along. However whenever my mom babysits Rory for me or I visit she complains that Rory's been playing WAY too roughly. For example Jake didn't want to get up off the porch and play in the garden the other day so Rory grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him to the Garden. I know Rory isn't trying to hurt Jake but my mom and I are worried an accident might happen, especially since Rory killed my pet rabbit when my little cousins tried to get them to 'play together nicely'. Besides separating them (which is pretty impossible because they bark/howl constantly to see each other), and running them both (they still seem to have a ton of energy despite the 2 hours of activity), what can I do?
Rory refuses to listen when they are together and yelling, making loud noises, etc aren't working.

I have to stay at my parents for two weeks for a school opportunity and unless i can improve on his behaviour they want to send him to the kennel.

That's a tough one. Siku actually plays too rough with Elara sometimes. Has a nasty habbit of grabbing her legs and pulling hard. I just get after her any time she does it. Maybe in your case you can set up an exercise pen for Rory to keep them apart or keep Rory on a tie out when their outside together. BTW, beagles are pretty tough little dogs, so I doubt Rory would do much damage.

I wouldn't worry about it to be honest, there were a few beagles where I worked that Koda would play hardcore with and they put up with his crap really well and beagles are tough cookies to begin with. I wouldn't compare this with the rabbit incident either because you should NEVER try to make a husky "play" with a rabbit or anything similar as that is asking for a blood bath with their prey drive. Dogs are a whole different scenario and dogs can DEFEND themselves as when all a rabbit can do is hop around.

The only problem is that Jake is the suckiest dog in the world. He doesn't fight back. The only time he ever fought back was when Jake had kennel cough, could barely move and Rory kept pawing him in the face and trying to drag him around. Jake ended up getting even more hurt and Rory escaped with only a scratch below his eye.
Rory is only 55 pounds now and excepted to be around 75 whereas Jake is only 30. I want to nip this problem in the bud before he gets any bigger.

In no way am I trying to compare the rabbit situation, just trying to make you guys understand the reasoning behind my parents wanting to put Rory in the Kennel. Pernicus (my rabbit) was always behind a closed door and had a locked cage so there wouldn't be any issues. My cousins are only 3, 5 and 7, not only was my aunt not watching them, they knew not to go near the Rabbit with Rory around.

Jake was just sent to the animal hospital needing stitches in 2 different places on his face and for a limping leg. We don't know yet if it's broken, sprained or what.
My brother left them in the kitchen alone for 2 minutes to run upstairs and grab his book off of his dresser.

So much for not worrying. :/

So sorry to hear that. I don't know what to say. I've never seen dogs go to the face though in a playing manner, but that's just my experience with the dogs I worked with. Yank on neck skin (not too hard) and maybe gnaw on eachother's cheeks, but that's it..

Here's a thread with videos of rough play. It might help determine if it's husky being husky or something more. If not, at least it's entertaining video. FWIW - Mine get a little carried away and I instantly correct the behavior by removing one of them via leash. Now they know when I yell HAY STOP IT that means to cease and desist.

https://www.itsahuskything.com/t2429-videos-huskies-at-play

Honestly, it wounds like you are dealing with aggression, perhaps because of dominance. I suggest training and talking to your vet.

Are Jake and Rory both un-neutered males?

There are times where I need to step in and end the playing between mine as it's just becoming way too intense. My girls and my boys will both play very rough with each other (there's a lot of leg grabbing and face/lip biting here) but I do/will separate them if they're getting too out of control.

Did your brother hear a fight break out? Or did he hear anything at all?

I would work on more structured bonding time with the 2 of them such as long walks together as well as breaking up the play session when things get a little too wild. They both need to respect each others space and learn to listen to each others body signals.

I would be hesitant to throw around words like aggression and dominance without seeing anything in person. With a dog as young as Rory, it's highly unlikely that he has developed aggression issues or any sort of "dominance". To me it sounds like a dog who was improperly socialized or taken away from his pack too young. It sounds like he just doesn't understand canine body language and what "ouch that hurts" means from a dog.

Koda is like that and we have to teach him regularly that when a dog bares his teeth in a "I don't want to play" way... that doesn't mean "play harder" or "I want a fight." And Koda will escalate a situation like that because he doesn't understand. That doesn't make him aggressive and I don't think Rory is either.

However, I agree with Kristina. NEVER leave them alone unsupervised. Kick up the bonding. Structured walks and less free play time until you know who is who in the pack order and can be there to correct a situation that is escalating too far.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend anyone.

Koda wrote:

Koda is like that and we have to teach him regularly that when a dog bares his teeth in a "I don't want to play" way... that doesn't mean "play harder" or "I want a fight." And Koda will escalate a situation like that because he doesn't understand. That doesn't make him aggressive and I don't think Rory is either.
.

Our two are pretty good at figuring that out but other dogs they've played with don't. How do you teach them that?

When I figure it out, I'll let you know.

It's different for every dog. So far with Koda we try to correct the behavior and redirect him immediately. However, timing is everything. You want to give him a chance to say "hi" but correct it the moment it turns from "Hi" to "Grrr" Koda plays very rough, as almost all huskies do... and he just doesn't quite understand when other dogs don't think it's fun when he grabs their neck and shakes them to the ground (go figure!). So what we try to do is reinforce the other dog's signal. Watch the OTHER dog (the non-rough one). The moment the other dog gives the "Hey, I don't like that" sign... reinforce it by issuing a correction (maybe a "AH-AH"-- think Victoria Stillwell) and then get him (in our case Koda) to focus on you (rope toy tug, or a squeaker toy). I'm still working on this myself, so this is by no means the fix or what you should do... but this is how I'm trying to address it.

At the end of the day though, it's hard to teach someone ELSE'S dog manners and the true key is consistency. So unless their owners are reinforcing it when you are not around, no training is going to be effective.

I think Toris approach is a good one, it would be the way I would handle it anyway.. Mickey is the only one of mine who is rough with other dogs but he recalls and obeys so well that all I do is tell him no.

lol i'd love to see embry and mickey play, embrys a freaking growling, dominant beast lmao he wouldn't hurt a fly but man is he loud

He always goes for the really loud aggressive dominant dogs. And it's usually the pit bulls.

Dog is trying to give me a heart attack.

I think Mickey and Koda would get along well... lol. They sound like the same dog too

ETA: All the more reason for me to steal Mickey!! Mwahahaha!

It sounds like an unsocialized dog to me too. Appa is a magic dog, and matches the energy level of every dog he meets. At first he wants to go ballistic and play as hard as he can, but if the other dog isn't in to it, he calms right down and plays only as hard as they want to. With my in-law's dog (lab-wirehired mix) it's a free-for-all-no-holds-barred riot. There is lots of face, cheek, ear, neck, leg (front only) pulling from both dogs. Appa gives his fair share of neck-shake take downs and pinning to the ground and gets pummeled in return. Neither are aggressive, they just play rough. Gotta love our nordic breeds. But when things get too intense for Appa he cries until we separate them. The other dog doesn't understand that Appa gets too hot in this summer heat.