New puppy with older, timid dog

Question
QUESTION: Hello,
My wife and I have recently adopted a new Pit mix with an age of 3 months.  I also have a 3 1/2 year old Pit mix who is very timid.  Both are females who are spayed.  The older seems more annoyed by the puppy playing but does still plays back, also she will not show the puppy when enough is enough.  My older dog is getting to the point of having light scratches around the neck.  The older has snapped once or twice but they usually only stop when intervened by myself or my wife.  Should I just let them continue playing until they both learn how to play correctly or stop when the puppy starts getting too rough or what?

ANSWER: Once past 3 years old, many dogs don't want anything to do with puppies, their sharp little teeth, and their biting games.  You need to teach the puppy to leave the older dog alone when it tires of the play.  As soon as the puppy starts to focus on the older dog, give it a sharp ''Ah, ah, ah!'' and offer it a chew toy.  

Having a good pack structure reduces such problems. The dogs see all the people and dogs in the household as a pack with each having their own rank in the pack and a top dog. Life is much easier if the 2 legged pack members outrank the 4 legged ones. You can learn to play the role of top dog by reading some books or going to a good obedience class. A good obedience class or book is about you being top dog, not about rewarding standard commands with a treat.

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QUESTION: To follow up, at what point should I stop the play?  The older of the two seems to usually try and immediately get away and show teeth while the pup just nips at her neck, but I would like to see her become a little more sociable and playful as we have only had her for less than a year and believe she had a rough first year of upbringing.  It takes her about 10 minutes to start really pinning the pup down and working up to a growl but immediately backs off and on it goes.  She barks with somewhat of a high-pitch if it goes further, but I'm not trying to have aggressive or  dogs fighting but I don't want my oldest to be such a wuss when it comes to other dogs either, in which case she acts the same to a lesser extent being that all the other dogs we play with are older.  Of course introducing the pup to other puppies was strongly discouraged for now as she needs more vaccinations, but not for 3 weeks.  Sorry I'm just trying to find that right amount of play before it becomes something more.

Answer
Some dogs don't do well with other dogs.  Over Christmas we had 6 dogs plus a couple of small children in the house.  3 of the dogs had a great time playing together, and a fourth was happy to join in part of the time and was always tolerant of the others.  One was a small terrier mix whose efforts to keep order were largely ignored.  The sixth one is a rescue dog that is becoming more accepting of other dogs, but has a long way to go.  She didn't care much for the kids either.  She spent most of her time gated in the living room away from the other dogs.  She was never near the children without an adult.  

I am afraid for now you must work at keeping the puppy away from the older dog.  That is what we did with a dog we had the last 5 years of its life.  The older it got, the less it wanted to do with our puppies.  As the older dog adjusts to having the puppy in the house and the puppy settles down more, she may be more tolerant of play.  

If you can identify other young dogs known to be getting good care, let you puppy play with them.  They really need continuing time with other dogs.  Of course, even more important is getting her out around strange people, places, noises, etc. that you expect her to accept whne she is older.  

The period between 6-12 weeks is a dangerous time.  One sniff where a sick dog relieved itself in the last 6 months can bring on parvo or another life threatening disease.  Fail to expose it to strangers, including men, women, children, noise, etc. and you could end up with a misfit you can't take out in public.  The danger of parvo continues after the window for best socialization closes.