What is he thinking?

[ankoi]

This is not a major issue, but I'd just like to know what is going in his head and how should I react. Tami (8 months old) is very playful and he does not have that many doggie friends, because he is usually scared of bigger dogs than he is. This has happened two times now and both times the another dog has been smaller or the same size as he is. We are having four year old shih tzu female staying with us for a few days, she has not been socialized well and is a little scared of other dogs.She does not pay any attention to Tami, but the problem is that Tami pays him a little too much attention. He is obsessed with playing with her, he play bows, whines, barks etc and tries to lure her in to play. She just looks the other way and tries to keep away from him, sometimes she snaps at him, but he just gets more excited about that (like 'yay, she noticed me!!'). We've trying to keep them separated, but Tami seems really stressed sometimes, he's panting, pacing, sniffing places she has been lying and whining at the door and if given the opportunity, he'll run straight to the other dog. We always take Tami away from her when he starts this.

This has happened once before that he's wanted to play with older dog who does not want to play with him. The other dog is a bully (i've once described the situation with him in another thread, but it's gotten much much worse since!) and he can't stand seeing Tami, and hadn't he been on leash, he would have ripped his head off (well, i don't really think so, but it surely looked like it!). He's five years old minpin. When ever he glanced at Tami, he started to lure him into play, which made him furious. But again, that made Tami even more excited. I thought then that Tami was calming the other dog with playbowing ('see, i'm just playing!'), but now i'm not so sure any more..

I'd really like to know what he's thinking when he does this.. is he bullying? or is he just too enthusiastic and does not know how to behave? And what should I do?

[***Melissa***]

I'm bumping this, think is was missed

[Dakine'smama]

I'm curious what age you got your dog. I know Victoria talked once about how important socialization is when puppies are first born. My dog was only around one sibling (super small litter!) so he gets anxious and we've really had to work with him when he's with our neighbors' dogs. Maybe you could take your dog to a puppy kindergarten so he can be around lots of other dogs and learn "etiquette!"