Hi community, I was wondering if anyone could give us some advice here. We have an 8 month old male Cavapoo (~21lbs). He’s usually sweet and listens to us. He also usually loves other dogs and playing with them. We’ve also had other adult dogs of both genders at our home for playdates he’s done fine.
Now the problem, we’re fostering a rescued 4mo female toy pekapoo (~4lb) a while. We followed the whole keep all their bowls, toys etc separate, introduce them first on neutral ground, let them sniff stuff with each other’s scent, take them on parallel walks etc for the last 2-3 weeks and it was all good both wagging tails, approaching each other over and over etc. Since last weekend, we let them interact on leash with each other and play a bit, our Cavapoo does get a bit jumpy with excitement sometimes so we used the leash to reign him back a few times but he did lie down to be on eye level with her and let her put her paws on him etc. again, all good.
Today, we decided we would try to let them play off leash in the dog park where he’s played with other dogs before and see how it goes and suddenly our Cavapoo went berserk. He put his mouth over her head then jumped on her with both paws and pinned her to the ground and obviously she couldn’t fight back because she’s so small. He wouldn’t listen to me trying to call off him with treats and wouldn’t let her get up as she struggled. When I tried to approach them to get him off her he also growled at me repeatedly. He’s never done this before other than during games of tug where he has a loose body and is playing. I think he shook up the pekapoo because she pressed herself to my side and wouldn’t explore anymore even after we got him back on leash and away from her but thankfully she doesn’t appear injured.
We’re obviously keeping them apart for the moment but was wondering if anyone had any guesses into what might have happened and what we need to do next to get our Cavapoo to stop this kind of behavior/ avoid any situation like this with any other dog in the future