New dog being aggressive to other dog

[BansheeBreeze]

A few days ago we adopted a 2 year old male French Bulldog. He was not neutered (which we took care of right away) but supposedly got along with the other Frenchies at the rescue. However he’s turned into a little bully with our female pit mix. He acts extremely threatening and dominant to her, even though she acts very submissive to him. He’s fine with her sometimes, and then if she moves wrong, looks at him wrong, getting attention from us or goes near “his space”, he attacks. Our poor girl is terrified of him, she’s afraid to do anything. Other than this, he’s a great dog. I know he’s probably just scared with all these changes and needs time to settle in and be comfortable, he is rather timid and insecure. Its been my bfs biggest dream to have one, he was a birthday present, and he’ll just be crushed if we can’t keep him. He is showing improvement and most of the time he can manage to be around her and be calm, even laying next to her,but it’s very tense still.

I’m pretty sure WHY he is acting like this, he’s afraid and guarding his space and things. I’m hoping for suggestions on how we should be properly handling his behaviour. Unfortunately we live in a small space so they need to be able to get along. I try ignoring him and keeping my energy calm when he goes near her unless he’s getting too intimidating and then calling him over and praising him when he leaves her alone. If he won’t back off I’ll yell or growl and that generally makes him back away. If he still won’t stop or tries going after her, I’ll swat him and then he acts like he’s very sorry and will be super nice for awhile. I try petting them both at the same time and praising any interactions where there is no aggression. I feed them in separate rooms, her first, and am keeping treats out of our training so he won’t be more defensive.

I’m just not sure the best approach to take. Should I just leave them alone and let them figure it out, let him be the dominant dog so he won’t feel threatened and will stop trying to assert himself? Is my current approach good? Or should I work on putting him at the bottom of the pack so he will stop bothering her? I’m afraid if I let him be alpha he’ll always be a jerk, but if I put him down in the pack will be be constantly trying to reassert himself. Our girl is mostly very submissive but a few times she’s snapped back when he attacks and I’m afraid of one of them getting hurt. Is there any hope for this to work out or should I just give up now?

Would really appreciate any advice or suggestions. Thanks!

[tinah]

Teach the new dog “leave it”. He shows the slightest sign of aggression, tell him “leave it” and run him off. Your house, your rules, you call the shots. As long as you tolerate the aggression it’s not going to go away.

[Bicoastal]

Oooor manage the two so new guys stays under threshold then gradually increase his threshold of tolerance while current girl stays safe.

Are you sure she is innocent? From Suzanne Clothier: scroll down to the Greyhound and read the comments about Cream the Golden. I bet you’re right and he is being a possessive jerk because Frenchies are furry napoleons renowned and sought for their 'tude.

Hopefully with time, management, boundaries, and you learning thresholds and signals, he will feel more secure thus less aggressive.

[kelliope]

Thanks for posting that article from Suzanne Clothier. It is a great one!

[ElisLove]

I really only have experience with my groomer’s french bull dog as they aren’t very common around here but from what I have seen they can be very dominant and if he thinks someone (human or dog) is ‘giving him the finger’ he will give it right back.
He likes to get up in other dogs’ faces, and a couple times the other dog has told him where to put it, and even when they are 80 pound dogs he will get mad and try to get them back.
You need to be very consistent with him. My groomer is not consistent with him and so he never leaves the dogs alone that she leads or carries around (which irritates me to no end) but it took me maybe 4 corrections every time he went to bug my dogs and bam, he no longer comes CLOSE to my dogs I’m working with. I just took him by his scruff (didn’t lift him off the ground just firmly took hold of his scruff) and told him don’t. He screamed as if I was murdering him, and tried to get at me, but I just held on till he stopped screaming and chilled out. Like I said 3-4 times of that consistently and he was ‘cured’.
My groomer is not consistent so 5 or 6 times she lets him get up in her dogs’ faces as she maybe says don’t or does something very passive if she does anything at all. Then eventually she gets frustrated with him and corrects him very similar to how I correct him. Then she lets him get up in her dogs’ faces for 5 or 6 times, then gets frustrated and corrects him. He virtually leaves none of her dogs alone even though she’s probably corrected him 15 times for it, but it lacks any consistency, as appose to my 3-4 corrections that were very consistent.
He’s not afraid of me due to the corrections even though I rarely interact with him other than those corrections and I’ve had to do far less corrections than her.

[jetsmom]

Try walking them together briskly on leashes twice a day for about a half hr each time. Don’t stop and sniff. For some reason, walking together seems to help dogs bond. It really does make a difference. The moving forward and not stopping seems important, as it gives a sense of purpose to the walk, and prevents their attention from wandering all over.

[BansheeBreeze]

Thanks for the suggestions, I’m glad to know it’s a Frenchie thing and not just him (my FIL went and got a little female Frenchie from the same rescue and she’s worse than our guy). I’ve been not letting him get away with threatening her, making myself the alpha, and walking them together with her in the alpha position and him in the low man spot. He came around really quickly. They’ve already begun playing with each other, sharing toys and he can let her eat in peace. He is a bit bi polar, usually in the evening he gets grumpy and acts out, like if she’s getting attention from us, but I’m floored how different his behavior is and how quick he came around. He’s gone from attacking her to trying to hump her! She finally put the smackdown on him tonight for it and he rolled on his back and submitted to her. Instead of having to separate him for attacking her, tonight I had to separate him because they were playing so hard! He even kisses her face and let’s her have his toys. I think he’s in love lol. So glad they are getting along and we’ll be able to keep him!