Puppy playing with my grown dog

My 8 week old puppy and my 7 year old dog have been playing pretty well but I want to ask a few questions.

1. My puppy is nipping at everything, including the dog. Should I correct her when she nips him or should I let him do it?

2. How can I tell if they are playing too rough? Will it be obvious? Is this a stupid question? lol

3. They like to play tug of war with toys. Should I stop this? If so, what can I redirect them both to do?

This sounds like normal behavior to me. The big dog will put the pup in its place if it gets too rough. If the grown dog likes the pup, which it sounds like is the case, I see no problems at all.

Just watch them closely and make sure that is still play. If the older dog likes the puppy, he will probably just ignore it when he gets annoyed from it biting him too much. I am going through the same thing right now and I know it is hard to know when to separate them so it is definitely not a stupid question!

Your older dog should be fine to correct your puppy, assuming he's been well socialized with other dogs and doesn't have any issues. The only time I've heard of a problem is with an older dog who wasn't well socialized and took corrections 'too far' - didn't let up even when the pup submitted, which can happen sometimes. But if your older dog corrects and backs off then it should be fine, noisy at times but fine. It may not be until the puppy is a bit older that the corrections get firmer.

And separate them on a regular basis, so the puppy has some bonding time with the humans of the house, and the older dog gets a break too. It will help both with their confidence if they know the world exists outside of the other dog. We have a few 'siblings' that come in for boarding where it's a huge issue if the dogs are separated and it's very stressful on them.

Lana