How does your Cairn do around "new" or other dogs?

[Mollyrocker]

I have been here posting occasionally and visit often enjoying all your Cairn photos, infromation and stories. Some of you know I am a Cairn owner wannabe and I

want to know everything I can before I decide to get a Cairn. (I am a Lab owner)

I think I am pretty knowledgable at this point from reading everything I can get my hands on from temperment to grooming. I also have a friend with 3 Cairns who I adore and enjoy their unique "Cairness" (if that could be a word)

I also participate in another dog forum for Labs..

Recently, on the forum, there was a discussion brought up about "bully" breeds (terriers) having problems not getting along well with other "new" or strange dogs..after the "magic age of two". Specifically they were talking about JRT's being kicked out of daycare and no longer being able to get along with other dogs despite being heavily socialized, trained all through their adolescence.

This has me worried... is this a common problem with Cairns?

I surely don't expect any dog to get along with every dog, but I was wondering if you all as Cairn owners experienced this?

So, if you all would be so kind to share your own experiences, I would be grateful.

such as..

1. Does your Cairn get along with other dogs aside from dogs that he/she was raised with?

2. If not, did your Cairn get along with dogs before the "magic" age of two and then suddenly have a problem with other dogs?

3. Can you take your Cairn to doggie daycare without problems?

4. As experienced terrier owners, do you think that this generalization about terriers is ridiculous?

[tena]

Sophie is 3 and what her history of other dogs, I don't know. She is very excited to meet other dogs, and is typically good about it BUT....she is super quick to return any insult and is most persistant about being the top dog.

This gets her in trouble. The dog she meets only has to 'look at her funny" and she is ready for a fight. She will also attempt to dominate any dog even when they are on home turf.

I live in rural WV, we don't have doggie day care, so not sure how that works. To me it would be simular to child day care...if there is a lack of control in the enviorment, I'm sure the JR's and Cairns will exploite it.

I imagine some of the "bully' is the terriers temperment and the control the owners have. or not

(Magic age of two also applies to cats, who once they complete growing settle into an adult personality that may be different than their kittenhood. My background is in feral cat rescue)

I foster cared a yellow lab before she was adopted, and as wonderful as she was, she was NOTHING like Sophie. Polly (the lab) was almost blindly obeident, she was very into me, and wanted nothing more than to please. She is like that with her current owners.

Sophie adores me...but...she's minding when she wants to, is into pleasing herself, and has a completely different outlook on life. She is very much....I can handle it myself, thanks. Where Polly was...what do you want me to do?

Frankly, I would never of chosen a terrier breed if I was researching them, doubt they would fit my lifestyle. But Sophie is a perfect fit for us, and I would of missed out on her...if I knew in advance what her breed was. So while some breed things are just their nature, some things are nurture.

my 25 cents worth

Tena

[qwas789]

I know this does not help you any but thought you might enjoy the pic:

[Mollyrocker]

thanks Tena for your experiences...very helpful, thanks for sharing...

gwas789.....awwwwwww!

[Guest Guest]

Our current Cairn, Packy, thinks everybody is his friend and wants to play. He had a blast the one time we took him to doggie daycare, was the life of the party at "yappy hour" and thinks going to the vet is a social event. He's just 1 1/2 yrs. I can't see that changing in him -- it seems to be part of who he is.

Our first Cairn, Willie, also got along well with all other dogs, right up until we lost him at 16 yrs. The only time he became slighlty aggressive was once when we were playing fetch-the-tennis ball and his "cousin", a huge Newfie/shephard mix tried to get the ball. Since chasing a tennis ball was his life's work, Willie went at her and took the ball away. Shoot -- we were worried about him and the Newfie was the one that came away with a bloody lip!

Anyway, neither of my Cairns have ever had any trouble with other dogs. Some dogs don't seem to like them, but my dogs have always been well-behaved.

[dianer]

We owned a cairn that was aggressive to other dogs. I socialized him, went faithfully to several obedience classes and was very strict when he got out of line. He was also aggressive to Moose, Deer, Wolverines, and Whales. The only thing he ran from was Bears. I'm sure he had nine lives because he made it to old age much to my surprise. He was not the alpha male of his litter, his brother and sister bossed him around and so did my mom's female when they were together. I knew his Sire and Dam and they weren't particularly antisocial, but his Dam was the boss around the house. Our new cairn puppy is different in that she is more eager to please and tolerant of other animals as well as children. My mom's two cairns were not aggressive, in fact her male was very timid. I think it depends on the dog and owner and if they are spayed or neutered, not on the specific breed or group. Just one persons opinion though.

[kcsdogs]

Hi there! Kipper, my nine year old Cairn has never been nasty to another dog but he also will not put up with much either. He acts like a Terrier when meeting another dog and as long as other dog does not touch his toys they get along great! I would describe him as bossy and tenacious but not mean ( they always sound like they mean more than they intend anyway. He lives with a GSD and a Boston and they all get along very very well.

[pjoes_girl]

I didn't read through everyone else's answers, but my dog , a yr old now, even as a pup was tough. He pulled my elderly Boston Terrier across the floor by her neck twice! and once she was bleeding. Now i must go on to say that he has been pretty good with her, although he is a little rough, she gives it right back. I would say , if you have a real small other dog, not a good idea, but if you have a larger dog that can take the nips and such , they would probably be ok. If you have cats, birds, or small pets, gerbils, hamsters and such I'd say forget it. Just my humble opinion.

[Brody'sMom]

When Brody is leashed, he is very barky if he meets another dog. Our trainer was confident that Brody's would not ever initiate an attack on other dogs and actually managed to get Brody to be friendly on leash with the other dogs in our training class. If Brody meets another dog in a fenced area, he is friendly. Usually he just says hello and then ignores the other dog! Mia is pretty friendly with dogs, though she sneers at our friends' female Airedale, she is fine with the male. Brody and Mia get along great together. Neither has ever been to doggy day care.

Edited to add: Brody just turned two and Mia 15 months, but I've never heard anything about Cairns becoming more aggressive after 2. Brody and Mia are the only dogs I've ever had (as an adult) and since I did not have anything to compare them to, I did not find them difficult to train. However, we dog sat a poodle for a few days and I saw how amazingly easy he was to handle (He was also amazingly well trained, he can sit stay for 30 minutes!).

[savannahsmom35]

Savannah thinks that every dog that she runs across was born to play with her. We socialized her with other dogs early and she loves them all. There a 2 HUGE red dogs in the neighborhood (don't exactly know what breed they are but they are bigger than a lab) and savannah is very submissive to them. When they come near her, she rolls over on her back to show that she knows that they are alpha. BUT, this is one problem that we have never had with Savannah. She considered us the alpha from the day we brought her home and she has never tried to change that. If the dog is around her size, she will play and play (this includes with 2 labs in the neighborhood). The dogs that she rolls over for are so big that she can walk underneath them without ducking down or anything. I think as long as you socialize your Cairn and get them used to being around dogs from a young age, you will be fine. Good luck!

[Eliz222]

Scout loves to play with other dogs and is gentle when she first meets a dog she doesn't know (sniffing, checking out body parts). Her best friend is the dog next door.

Finch is the complete opposite! When we are on walks, she will bark and growl at other dogs she meets. Once she is up close to them, she will sniff and she's very friendly, but most of the time she doesn't get a chance to get to know the other dog because the other owner backs away. Scout and Finch, of course, are kept on a tight leash so meeting other dogs is not a problem. Finch doesn't play with the dog next door, or the dogs 2 doors down. They have a fenced in yard and we do "play dates" when the weather is nice. Finch spends her time sniffing the ground. She does play with Scout ALL the time but I have no idea why she is not interested in other dogs.

[tena]

Just wanted to add that Sophie lives with two cats. She had an initial scuffle with the smallest cat over her food dish, but never again. She is a bit intimidated by the big cat but would like to play with him. (Of course an 18 pound cat is intimidating anyway)

[Lisad]

My pup sounds a lot like the others here. I have socialized him very well and very carefully ever since he was nine weeks old. He absolutely loves his "cousins" (three big dogs). He loves all the other dogs in his puppy day care (I talk to the day care lady about it constantly ). I've seen him aggressive twice...or should I say "defensive". A large shephard ran at him once and scared the bah-geezzes (spell?) out of both of us. The adrenaline level was high on both of us. At that point, he would not calm down enough to "buddy up" with the shepherd. Another time, a dog approach my car as we were leaving a hiking trail. I was not very happy with him that day. He was being defensive for no reason (the other dog was really nice). So, I would say my pup has been very well socialized, is NOT aggressive but he would probably defend himself (quite well) if he felt threatened.

(He is now ten months old.)

[Anna_525]

Alfie loves to play with other dogs. I've only seen him twice in more than 20 encounters looking threatened and growling so I had to pull him away. However, he likes playing with the bigger dogs and not all big dogs are good with little ones. He wants to be everyone's boss and it gets him into trouble. He doesn't bark when he meets the dogs up close.

[Milopup]

Wish my pup was like all of yours. :( He is very barky when he sees other dogs.

[kcsdogs]

I didn't read through everyone else's answers, but my dog , a yr old now, even as a pup was tough. He pulled my elderly Boston Terrier across the floor by her neck twice! and once she was bleeding. Now i must go on to say that he has been pretty good with her, although he is a little rough, she gives it right back. I would say , if you have a real small other dog, not a good idea, but if you have a larger dog that can take the nips and such , they would probably be ok. If you have cats, birds, or small pets, gerbils, hamsters and such I'd say forget it. Just my humble opinion.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree with what you said about them being a little rough and that is how a terrier acts for the most part in my case I would not really trust my Cairn to not want to do serious damage to anything much smaller than he is (cats, Chiuauas, any kind of rodent) they have a strong prey drive with small animals so one would definetly need to be aware of that, on the other hand though mine is great with other dogs even though he's quite bossy he is also totally appropriate.

[ZephyrandCleosMom]

My dogs have always gotten along well with their "aunt" Millie Jean... a one hundred pound 10 year old black lab... of course, Millie is very laid back when Cleo goes to pester her.. but they've NEVER growled at each other. We rescued our dogs when they were both a year and half.. so I have no idea how they were introduced to other dogs, but when we introduced them to my mother-in-laws 3 dogs they behaved very well. We also have play dates with 2 small Yorkies (one is 6 pounds, the other is 3) and my dogs LOVE playing with them as well. If anything, the Yorkies growl at my dogs rather than the other way around. Either way, I always keep a CLOSE CLOSE eye on the dogs when they're playing with each other.

[ParNone]

Maddie was a people person dog, so she really had no desire to interact with other dogs. She'd ignore them and wouldn't start anything, but if they messed with her, she would not back down. Around the house, with my Collie, Oz and my other Cairn, Murph, she yanked out some of their dog hair from time to time, to keep'em in line, but never actually hurt either. She also was much more tolerant of Oz. She'd actually allow Oz to sleep next to her, whereas with Murph, she didn't want him touching her.

Murph has always been good around bigger more submissive breeds. Goldens are his favorite. I would never trust him off leash around a dog smaller then him or dominant breeds. He's tried to pick fights with other terriers and Rottweilers of all breeds. That's actually why I chose Collies to add to the family, because I felt my Cairns would get along okay with them.

There was a Cairn in Oz's agility class. She'd been very well socialized and was around quite a few different breeds, off leash on the agility field. She never tried to start any fights, but if another dog got in her face, she didn't stand for that. Well except for Oz. She quite liked him. They'd greet each other and touch noses. Maybe she could tell he'd been raised by Cairnys.

Les...

[Hagar]

My seven month old Cairn has gotten along well with my neighbor's two Dacshunds (Sp?) and when they are out at the same time they play a lot of "You lick my face and I'll lick yours" through the fence. He also did very well with my daughter's Lhasa Apso when we visited over Christmas.

On our daily walks we have been approached by an occasional loose dog and have met other people walking their leashed dogs. Renny is very friendly towards other dogs, but he also does NOT BACK DOWN from even much larger dogs. He is also getting very protective towards me.

Since we started encountering a few loose dogs, I did purchase a small canister of pepper spray that is clipped to the leash "just in case". Hagar

[Milopup]

Our vet suggests our pup do an hour of behavior modification so he doesnt get growly around bigger dogs - wish we could afford it but it is $500 an hour.

[Lisad]

Hey Milopup, What does "behavior modification" consist of for $500.00?? Thanks.

[SARpartner]

Dusty lives with his three "brothers". A Golden Retriever, a Yellow Lab, and a black 100 lb mix. Dusty will get growly if someone tries to mess with the big black one. They are buddies and he tries to protect him. Yes, he protects the biggest dog I own. Dusty also has several buddies on our SAR team. There is only one dog he can't stand and she is a Lab that is ugly to every dog she meets. I have to watch him around her because ever since she lunged at him he tries his best to get at her. We are currently teaching them to tolerate being near each other.

[OzGirl]

Roxy is the same as Savannah, she thinks all dogs were born for her to play with. She has never met a dog she didn't like, unfortunately she just doesn't get unfriendly dog's messages (this is where I step in and move her away). Only once have I seen her become submissive and roll over to a bigger dog (a doberman in her current puppy class). I'm hoping as she gets older she will understand when a dog doesn't want to play.