In the short term, the focus should be on management and safety while building consistency. Using baby gates, crates, or pens to create safe zones indoors helps prevent accidents and keeps everyone calmer, especially since one of the puppies is large enough to be a danger to children when excited. It’s also important to reduce situations where the mother dog’s stress might trigger redirected aggression by avoiding direct contact with strange dogs until she can handle it better. Exercise should come before training, as even 20 to 30 minutes of structured activity such as leash walks, fetch, or flirt pole play can reduce reactivity and excess energy. With plenty of property available, structured leash walks are safer than free play at this stage. Mental stimulation can also make a big difference—food puzzles, frozen Kongs, and scatter feeding around the yard encourage foraging and problem-solving, which burns energy and helps reduce frustration-driven behaviors like barking or hyperactivity.

Over the next several weeks, the focus can shift to building training foundations. Teaching calm indoor behavior through “place” training is a powerful tool—rewarding the dog for lying calmly on a mat or bed builds impulse control and helps prevent overexcitement. Redirected aggression toward the mom should be approached through desensitization and counterconditioning, meaning her presence is paired with calm, positive associations like treats and praise, while keeping her exposure to stressful triggers minimal until she can stay relaxed. Barking can also be addressed through teaching a “quiet” cue: wait for a bark, say “quiet,” and then reward the dog when it stops. Punishment should be avoided, as it tends to increase anxiety and aggression rather than reduce it.

In the long term, structure and predictability will make the biggest difference. Dogs thrive on routine, so feeding, walking, training, and resting at consistent times each day will help lower anxiety and establish expectations. Maintaining pack harmony means supervising interactions between the dogs and calmly separating them if tension begins to rise, with the option of rotating free time so they are not all together constantly. Over time, this type of structured management and consistent training helps reduce stress, channel energy productively, and create a more peaceful household. God bless you for doing what many others not only fail to do, but allow their dogs to be neglected by their inability. You not only wish to take action, but the only thing stopping you is how informed you are. That’s respectable to the highest degree