Getting a new puppy can be an exciting experience, but what happens if your older dog feels left out? If you lavish the older dog in attention, will the new pup feel left out?
Worrying about favoritism is a common doggy problem. There are many scenarios where you might have two dogs competing for attention and worry that one might feel slighted. Training dogs, living with a roommates dog, or pet sitting all come to mind.
The bad news is, dogs do understand favoritism. The good news is, once you know what dogs perceive as favoritism, it’s relatively easy to avoid the situation.
How Dogs Perceive Favoritism
In a 2008 study, dogs were trained to shake hands. They were happy to shake hands, even if there was no reward when they were alone or with a dog also not getting a reward. This did not change if one dog was given a ‘poor’ reward, such as a piece of black bread, and the other dog was given a sausage.
The trouble began when one dog was rewarded for a shake, and the other was not. Dogs would hesitate to perform the action, and eventually all together refuse to participate.
This means dogs do have a sense of fairness, but it’s not nearly as refined as a humans. As long as the dog is getting some sort of attention (even inferior attention) they’re happy.
It also does not matter to dogs how hard the work is. If one dog is asked to run an entire agility course for a treat, and another dog just has to go over a single jump, one dog does not feel slighted over another.
How to Avoid Favoritism
If you have an older dog and a new puppy, one dog might want or need a lot more attention than the other. As long as you are giving them both attention and not completely ignoring one over the other, your dog should not feel slighted.
What you do need to be careful of is not giving one dog anything when the other dog gets something. Even if it’s just a pat on the head, make sure both dogs get some attention. If you need to train one pup, but the other doesn’t need it, a quick sit/stay refresh will go a long way to soothing hurt feelings.
By making sure both pets get treats, training and attention, you ensure no one feels slighted—even if you give more or higher quality to one dog over the other.
Other Types of Inequity
Human-to-dog inequity isn’t the only form that can rile dogs up. It turns out, they also take their play seriously. If one dog is unfair in their play style, such as never taking turns being submissive or other rude behavior, other dogs will stop playing with them.
If they are in a play group, this kind of behavior can get them kicked out of the entire group. If they try to re-enter, dogs will abruptly leave or end play to avoid playing with the unfair dog.
One would think if dogs don’t care about quality of a treat as long as they get one, or level of effort for that treat, they also wouldn’t care about what type of play was offered. In this case however, they very much do care.
As time goes on, we will probably discover new ways dogs view inequality. As of right now, this is the latest research on dogs.
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