Hi, I'm a new member & I signed up to get an opinion from the dobie lovers on this forum. It won't let me post in the "doberman related chat" section so hopefully it's ok that I post it here.
I have a 3yr old male doberman. I adopted him a little over 1yr ago. His previous home had another male doberman who was the Alpha. But now he is the Alpha since he lives with another small 30lb male dog, and they get along great. However, I really wanted to get my Doberman a female friend who is more his size to play with. So today I took him to meet a female pup that was 5 months old, but he showed his teeth at her and snapped at her. I don't think he wanted to hurt her, but was letting her know to stay away from him. The breeder had 2 female pups out in the yard with my doberman and he was friendly at first when he was sniffing them so I let him run free with them. But then shortly after that he would snap & bark at them if they got close to him, which made them very scared since they were only 5 months old, so they wouldn't come near him again. I was trying to do the right thing and make sure they got along before I got the female, but do you think I did the wrong thing bringing him to their turf? Should I have just brought the female pup home?
I didn't feel comfortable putting them in the car together, so I didn't purchase the female. I think my male may have been scared that I might leave him there, since he could smell all of the dogs at the breeders property and he's been given away before. He felt threatened for some reason and was very rude. He's usually very nice to other dogs as I take him to visit my family and they have 4 little dogs, one of which is a girl, and I've had no problems with him being aggressive or snapping. Does anyone have any advice? Should I just give up on getting him a friend? Or perhaps I went about it in the wrong way? Thank you! -Ann
I have a 3yr old male doberman. I adopted him a little over 1yr ago. His previous home had another male doberman who was the Alpha. But now he is the Alpha since he lives with another small 30lb male dog, and they get along great. However, I really wanted to get my Doberman a female friend who is more his size to play with. So today I took him to meet a female pup that was 5 months old, but he showed his teeth at her and snapped at her. I don't think he wanted to hurt her, but was letting her know to stay away from him. The breeder had 2 female pups out in the yard with my doberman and he was friendly at first when he was sniffing them so I let him run free with them. But then shortly after that he would snap & bark at them if they got close to him, which made them very scared since they were only 5 months old, so they wouldn't come near him again. I was trying to do the right thing and make sure they got along before I got the female, but do you think I did the wrong thing bringing him to their turf? Should I have just brought the female pup home?
I didn't feel comfortable putting them in the car together, so I didn't purchase the female. I think my male may have been scared that I might leave him there, since he could smell all of the dogs at the breeders property and he's been given away before. He felt threatened for some reason and was very rude. He's usually very nice to other dogs as I take him to visit my family and they have 4 little dogs, one of which is a girl, and I've had no problems with him being aggressive or snapping. Does anyone have any advice? Should I just give up on getting him a friend? Or perhaps I went about it in the wrong way? Thank you! -Ann
