Older Chow protective of younger Chow

[MartMan86]

Hey gang, quick question for you.

A while ago my wife and I got another Chow, the puppy is from the same blood-line as our current Chow, Nadia who is female and now 5 years old. At first they didn't get along but now their the best of buddies, brother and sister technically.

Anyhow, I had an incident the other day while at my mother-in-laws. My mother has an older Beagle who is very, and I mean VERY temperamental but he has never snapped or even attempted to pull any aggression stunts on Nadia, the 5 yr. old Chow. I took Nadia and Kage both over to let them play with Rusty (the Beagle) for a bit while I helped my mother screen in her outside porch. About an hour into working I hear this god-awful squeal and cry... I threw down the staple gun and my tools and ran inside the house, and right when I did, I saw Nadia running like a monster into the kitchen. Nadia head-butted Rusty, knocked him down, and bit his neck and held him there until I told her to let him go.

Apparently Kage must of ate or drank from his food/water bowl where this whole thing occurred at and it made Rusty mad so he bit, or snipped at Kage, but all dogs are fine... just a little flesh wound on the Beagle that will heal in a few days.

Is this normal for Nadia to be this protective of him? Just the other day our neighbors Boxer/mix ran up to my fence and growled at Kage and Nadia ran off the deck, jumped over Kage and stood there in front of him, in a low crouched position. I've NEVER, EVER raised Nadia to be mean to any dog, but when it comes to Kage she's so protective of him it's unreal. Is this normal? Should I do anything or be concerned?

[Cocoa]

It sounds pretty normal, Kage is still a puppy and Nadia probably sees him as her puppy so she is going to be protective of him. The other dog threatened him so she stepped in. It is a maternal instinct to protect the puppy or an alpha protecting one of her pack. It also sounds like the beagle has food aggression issues. If they were getting along fine before the food issue I would suggest you have your mother mare sure there is no food out when you are visiting. I would also supervise them closely around other dogs and try to reinforce in Nadia that you are the alpha and it is up to you and not her to protect them both.

[Rory's Dad]

I agree that its perfectly normal. Your two have bonded (wonderful) and they are now 'packed'. It's kind of like human siblings, they may argue with each other, but will protect each other faithfully to outsiders.

[Victory]

Yes it is very normal especially with an older female, all her protective instincts will come out. My Firesong liked all the dogs in the neighborhood, and didn't understand the ones that didn't like her but ignored them, became very protective when I got Dreamdancer. All those dogs that had growled at Firesong and been ignored were no longer just ignored and a couple of the nastier ones wer growled at first. She was very much the big sister/foster mom and let everyone know it. She grew back out of it a bit as he got bigger and could deal himself. Now they are more like sibs and look out for each other.