Abbie, my Jack Russell

Question
QUESTION: Hello! First, I was never a "dog" person before I met my husband. Now we have three dogs and four cats. My dog is a female Jack Russell named Abbie she will be 3 on April 1st. My husband's dog is a male English Bull name Odie Mack.He will be four in Sept. of this year. And the third dog which is both of ours, is a boxer, named Cheyenne.she is 10. Abbie and Cheyenne are spayed. Odie is not, because my husband, Dave is thinking about using him as a stud one time. First you need to know that Abbie is Queen of everyone and the love of my life! :-) This may sound like a silly question, but I have been watching both these actions for too long and am curious about both, so I actually have two questions. Abbie "picks" on Odie until he starts barking at her and growling... I mean Abbie, snarls, growls and bites him till he gets upsets and starts to bark at her and finally he growls and pins her to the ground till she stops. He has never hurt her and then have been together since she was 5 weeks old. But why does she do this, she doesn't stop until he pins her down and then she submits and he washes her? It is almost everyday and like a ritual. It can't pretty loud and out of control. I try not to interfere, maybe I should? But again,when he has enough, he floors her. I want to understand this and is there anything I should do? The other question is, similar but not, :-) Abbie goes over to Odie, rolls over like she is being submissive, but then starts growling and showing teeth. What is she trying to prove or do? And the sad part is, Odie takes all her crap most of the time, why? oh, Abbie weighs around 15 pounds( a little chunky) and Odie weighs, 65lbs. pure buff. :-)


Connor - my jack   ANSWER: Donna -

That rascal Abbie !  She's acting like the obnoxious teenager she is.  While other breeds may start to be mellower adult dogs by 3, jacks tend to stay puppy-like longer. Since she's only 15 lbs, I suspect she's what they call a "puddin'" - the short legged ones.  (Mine's much larger than that.)

I would suspect this is all puppy pestering the adult dog until he just gets sick of it and put her in her place. Jack playing can sound just terrible but actually just be a lot of noise and showing teeth.

The other factor is that because Odie is not neutered, she is trying to flirt/play with him. Of course, she has no idea what to do since she's spayed, but there still may be a tiny bit of the instinct left.

Doesn't sound like it's anything to worry about since Odie can clearly take care of himself and also obviously want to hurt her - or he would have kicked her butt already.

-Beth

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------


ABBIE   QUESTION: Hi Beth, Thanks for your great answer. It supplied relief! :-) Your Jack is adorable! Abbie is the small"puddin" with short legs and oh soooo CUTE! I only have a comment. When we got my Abbie, she was 5 weeks old and weighed only 1 and 1/2 pds and the runt. From day one she hung onto Odie's Jowls... so I guess they are a team.:-)  I am attaching a picture of ABBIE at about 8 months. She is not a whole lot bigger now.(just a lot chunkier) Thank you again! Donna

Answer
OMG - She's adorable !  Do her ears stand up all the time ? Connor's do once in a while when he's worked up over something.

I don't know what it is about terriers, but the cairns I foster also tend to go for the jowls of my gordon setter (she has very very droopy ears and lips).

Enjoy !

-Beth