10 mon ESS-Is behaviour dominating or not??

[crazydays]

This is a simple issue i have run into and I just want to whether or not I should be correcting the behaviour.

My pup hasn't got an aggressive bone in her body. I just find that she is invading the space of my 7 year old dog. She won't leave Cagney alone. For example Cags will be on her bed and Rio will back right into her knocking her off the bed. Cagney gets up and leaves and Rio does the same thing on a different bed. Cags isn't correcting her and clearly she leaves the bed. Rio always likes to be touching--but does she have to sit on Cags head?? Is this a normal thing dogs do? I am thinking that Rio can lie beside Cagney which she often does, but lately it is like shes ramming her off her spot.
Do you think she is exerting dominant behaviour? Should I be telling Rio to get off the bed? Should I just leave to the dogs to work out? I just feel protective of my Cags (she must be the submissive one)

[bendyfoot]

When we got our younger dog Jaida at 3 months, our 5 year old dog got pestered constantly. Little Jaida wanted to sit on Gracie, touch her, sniff her, lie next to her....

and 12 months later she still does. She is Gracie's shadow.

Interestingly, Gracie (older) is very much more the dominant dog. If Gracie is sick of Jaida's behaviour, she warns her, or moves, or takes back whatever item Jaida has stolen from her. But most of the time she puts up with it without a fuss. I 85% of the time let them sort it out for themselves, and they get along just fine. Now, when Jaida was much younger, I used to intervene more often, to give Gracie some space, and I didn't tolerate any unnessary jerkiness for Gracie.

I think they'll most likely get things figured out on their own, IMO.

[hazelrunpack]

Ridge does that will all of our other girls. She'll leave a perfectly comfy bed open to curl up on top of someone else--most often, Cass. It seems to be some sort of puppyish behavior and is tolerated well by the older girls (except Macie...her reaction is just to get up and move)--but Ridge is 4 and still does it. She's also not very high on the Pack's hierarchy so it doesn't seem to be a dominance thing.

[crazydays]

Ok- thats reassuring from both of you-thanks. I guess the fact that Cagney gets up and leaves without a fuss is a good thing. I think Rio will be a Jaida and a Ridge. I can't see her growing out of it. I guess I was expecting that my 7 yr old standard schnauzer wouldn't be the one to be bossed around--clearly she doesn't assert herself (very weird to me especially when she is such a great watch dog!!!).

So I guess let it continue-it must be the dog hierarchy thing-- maybe Cags is so patient because Rio came to us as a puppy.