2 Dogs - Will They Get On?

Long Road 8378

We have a 3 year old Labrador mix. He's a great dog, very happy and also friendly with other dogs we meet on walks. We live right next to the in-laws who have a 13/14 year old Collie. Now, he's a lovely, friendly dog too but can be slightly irritable (due to age). The Collie had a brother and they were never seperated their entire lives, until about a year ago when the Collie watched the brother run out onto the road and get killed. It was heartbreaking.

The only thing seperating our Labrador and this Collie is a 6 foot fence and a 6 foot gate. If one is outside they will 'whine' for each other at the gate to get the other's attention. But, when they are both at the gate they bark, growl and snarl to the point where it can be very nasty, and both have often caught each other's toes under the gate causing very minor injury. On the other hand, they both wag their tail at the sound of each other coming up to the fence and often pass their toys to each other under the gap in the gate. On a few occasions the gate accidently flew open and they stood and stared at each other. No noise. Wagging tails. When we tried to introduce them on neutral ground they ran away from each other and hid behind the OH and the in-laws. Again, no noise or barking.

As the Collie is without his brother and our fella is (usually) dying to be friendly with anything with a pulse we thought they would be good company. It's not going as we imagined, any thoughts? Are they destined to be enemies at the gate? BTW, our fella is snipped, the Collie is not. And the Collie was the 'boss' out of the two brothers.

Thanks. Sorry for long story!