How do I get my dogs to accept a new older dog.

Question
I have four miniature dachshunds.  All of them get along and are retired from the same breeder.  I recently agreed to take my daughter-in-law's ten year old male Jack Russell Terrier.  The terrier has never been around other dogs and will not accept my dogs.  If they come close to him, he snaps and growls.  Mine are very sociable and want to play with him but he will have nothing to do with them.  I have had him for nearly three weeks.  I never leave them together alone.  But when I am home they are all with me.  I just can't pet or play with any of them for fear the terrier will snap.  He is very snappy about his bed and food. My dogs all eat from same bowl and never have a problem doing so.
I really want this to work and things have gotten better.  At least now he will look at my dogs.  Of course, he seems to look down his nose at them.  But still I feel they are making progress.  My question is how can I speed up the acceptance or will I ever be able to get the terrier to accept them?  The terrier has had to take prosaic for chasing his tail and is very excitable but can be disciplined with changes in my voice.  He shows shame when I get on to him about snapping.

Answer
Your subject heading is misleading. It sounds like your dogs are doing fine; the newcomer is the "bump in the road".

Since you *are* seeing improvements, I think the Jack Russell will settle in eventually, but you just need to have patience. Things like this can sometimes take several weeks to a few months. A friend brought in a new puppy several months ago, and it took her older (10-11 yr.) dog six months to start playing with the youngster.

Since the Jack Russell is older, he may have some aches and pains and not appreciate having the other dogs "bug him". All dogs deserve their own space, and the others need to learn to respect that. With time, he will come to realize that they really mean him no harm. His snapping at the other dogs is not really abnormal behavior as he is just sending them a warning to leave him alone; hopefully, he is not snapping at people... that would need to be corrected. A dog should be allowed to protect its food from (dog) thieves... as long as the person can remove that bowl without a problem.

Letting the dogs eat from the same bowl is not a very good idea, as some may eat more than they should, and some may not get enough... nor should food be left down all day as the dogs will tend to think that the food just "grew" there rather than realizing that it came from you, the alpha. Controlling the resources is one of the things that helps to reinforce being alpha. The more dogs one has, the more important this becomes, as a pack needs a strong leader.

Start practicing "Nothing in Life is Free" so that *all* the dogs understand that YOU (and your family) are the boss, and that should help to get things under control a bit better.  http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm  No dog should set the tone as to how the house is run.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Dachshunds were meant to work together in a pack, while terriers were meant to work independently. The JRT will never become "one of the Dachshunds". Have patience; all should work out in time.