What's my Dog saying?

[Dina]

We just recently introduced a new female pup to our household. My 8 year old male Boxer/mix is slowly getting used to her. We make sure our 8 year old always gets fed 1st, leads when taking a walk etc. When in the house, puppy resides in our spare room with a gate seperating her from our boxer. Whenever I'm in the room cleaning up when our pup messes, our boxer barks non stop! Only time he stops is when I physically remove the pupyy and hold her in my arms, He sniffs her and its ok. How can I stop him from barking once I'm in her room? ...anything I can say besides NO BARKING? I've tried treats but they only work temporarily. I'm afraid its going to be difficult to train the young pup if Rico is constantly barking. PLease help.

[puppup11]

The only thing I can think of is to shut the spare room door so he can't see you. I'm not sure why the barking.

[PetFriendly]

What kind of bark is it? Angry, scared, playfull... He's likely doing one of two things, trying to get the little one to leave the house, or play with him. Is there any body language you could tell us about (tail wagging, ears up/down, etc)

Stanley Coren has a really good book called 'How to speak dog' that talk about barking and body language. Its well put together and as far as I can tell, the guy knows what he's talking about.

TIP: if you can't find it on the shelves at Chapters, you can order it via one of the computer terminals in the stores and they'll deliver to your house for free!

[StaceyB]

Is your boxer the type of dog that seems to want your undivided attention. If so, ignore the bark.

[Dina]

Rico's bark is not aggressive, just a constant...."what are you doing with new puppy" kind of bark.
Saturday, we were up at our cottage and had the 2 out together and slowly had them sniff eachother. Rico went into this aggressive stance..body stff, ears forward, growled. Karina submitted lying on her back. In a split second Rico pounced on her and looked like he was going to masacre her! I pulled him off just in time.. he did not bite her but who knows what would have happened if I didn't pull him off in time. I ran inside the house with the pup to comfort her. My husband verbally scolded Rico. All day Sunday we kept them apart.
Rico was once a very social dog I'd bring him to the dog park and he was always very playful up until he stood up for himself against an aggressive dog. Then it got to a point we were banned from the park because Rico became too aggressive.
Now I'm really worried about how this attack will effect our puppy.