Slobbering American Terrier Pit Bull

I have my baby "Little Bit" an American Terrier Pit Bull who is almost a year old. She has never had babies nor is she spaded. We haven't decided whether to let her have puppies yet. We also have a lab/great dane/ mix that she has lived with since getting her. We brought home a puppy jack russel/rat terrier mix for my grandson. Whenever Little Bit is around her, she slobbers so badly and is scared of the puppy. We can't figure out why she slobbers so badly though. She has never done this before and only when she is around the new puppy...Can anyone please enlighten us to the reason why she is doing this and is there anything we can do to get her not to slobber so much!!!!!!!! Thank you for any advice you can give to us in helping Little Bit
Lee Ann, Robert, and Branden
Little Bit, Koda, and Freckles

 

Hi and welcome,

Just my opinion here as its not something Ive ever really looked into. Generally (in my experience) dogs will do this when they are either excited or anxious, the new puppy is triggering off the anxiety in her ánd it can almost become like a 'conditioned response' to this particular puppy or she may do it around other puppies or other smaller animals. I would be really careful with her because I have seen dogs also do this when fighting off the urge to attack, like they know theyre not allowed to but they want to. It could just be excitement though, maybe if she hasnt been around a dog this small/young before, she wants to play but is a little nervous of it, like she hasnt quite figured out exactly what it is yet, could be that if the pup is very young it may have even tries to nurse from her or something and it freaked her out. It could be that suddenly theres a new puppy thats getting all the attention and making her unsure of her status within the family (or her pack).

Like I said just monitor them very closely and dont leave them alone together at all unless theyre supervised by an adult. As for what you can do to stop her drooling so much, there really isnt anything much that I can think of, other than ignoring the behaviour, if you make a fuss of her or the pup....anything that brings more attention to what is actually going on right at that time then it could increase her anxiety/drooling. Actually what might help.....has she been well socialized around various other dogs? Maybe get her signed up for obedience classes so she can become familiar with a lot of other dogs....unless its just down to the pup being so young....in which case when the pup is a bit older she might stop doing it.

I had the same problem with my Rott whenever she saw a cat, she hated cats and before I had her she had actually killed a few so I ended up doing some serious aversion training with her....she got to where a cat could actually walk over her head as long as I was there but there would be a pool of drool on the floor from her....which wasnt easy to clean up as she was diabetic so her drool was sticky as well.

Just my opinion.

 

and please get her sterilised!

 

Young puppies will sometimes mob adult dogs, asking for food. The response is often that the adult dog will vomit, or try to vomit, food for the puppy. It may be that the puppy is triggering this sort of response in your dog. But it may also be a situation like DeLaUk described.

If your dog is not a superlative example of an APBT, isn't registered, has not been evaluated by a knowledgable breeder or show judge, and you haven't done a ton of research on breeding to improve the breed, please have her spayed. Also, if you haven't studied a lot about breeding, whelping, and rearing puppies, if you don't know all of the "what to do ifs...." and if you aren't willing or able to take full responsibility for every puppy produced, from birth to death, including taking back an adult dog that the buyer is no longer able to keep....PLEASE have your dog spayed.

Breeding should not be undertaken lightly. Puppies do not ask to be born. If we make the decision to bring them into the world, we should be prepared to accept 100% responsibility for that decision.