What to do if your dogs dont like each other?

[littlen]

Asking on behalf of my mother in law, not my dogs!!

So, she has 2 toy poodles. One ages 7 and one who is nearly 2 and still very puppyish. They have lived together for 4 months now but the older dog seems to really dislike the puppy.
They play quite rough, alot of bared teeth and noise. Not sure if this is play or aggression but it looks quite rough and noisy and usually ends up in one sulking off! When walked they pretty much egnore eachother and do their own things.
Younger dog is crated in the house as they cant be left alone together and they are fed seperatley. She always feeds older dog first to make sure younger dosent challenge him as the older dog is twice the size of the younger one.
Suprisingly, they do manage to share toys etc however the older one is constantly grumbling at the younger one. As yet neither dog has been hurt.
What would you do if they were yours, can you make 2 dogs be friends who actually dont like eachother??

 

[CorvusCorax]

Not really. If they're not drawing blood (and if they're serious, they would have done by now) then it's not as bad as all that and it probably is all mouth and no trousers, but it shouldn't get to the stage where they are skulking off from one another, someone needs to step in physically and vocally (calm and firm, not high pitched and hysterical) to calm things down before it gets that far, isolating one or both until they are calm and rewarding calm and passive behaviour.

Sharing toys is a big no-no in my opinion and causes all sorts of problems. So I'd nip that in the bud. The toys belong to the owner and they decide when and to whom they are handed out and removed.

To be honest, the older dog is probably getting peed off with getting pestered by the boisterous younger one and a human really should be stepping in to calm things down and give the old boy a break - 'just playing' can also be read as 'rude and obstrusive'.

There is more human error here than anything else!

I know plenty of people with dogs who don't get on, or who can't be kept in the same room/space unsupervised, you just make it work.
We'd all love to have a pack of perfectly behaved dogs gambolling around our heels but sometimes life isn't like that and what's the alternative? Time management, dog rotation and carefully supervised and monitored play can work just fine.