Border collie and bulldog puppy.help please

Good evening,

I'm new to this forum so please bear with me.

We currently have a 20 month male border collie, who is great with children and other dogs of all ages (even when they haven't been so friendly to him).

A friend has a female 6 month old Bulldog puppy and for numerous reasons she can no longer keep her so we thought that as our dog is so good with other dogs we could take her to save her being taken to a rescue centre and give her a loving home. (She is a lovely dog with a very nice temperament)

When the bulldog first came round to our house they started playing and running around together which was great, shortly after the bulldog become curious with Milo's (border collies) tail, which he didn't like at all and showed his teeth and growled (which is understandable), he tried to jump up on the sofa to get away but this just let the bulldog take another nip, although she only caught his fur. After this Milo hid behind the sofa for 30 minutes, we finally tempted him out with his ball, he finally plucked up the courage to go and sniff the puppy and although he was wagging his tail he shortly after showed his teeth again.

After this our friend left as we were worried this might escalate into something more.

3 days later we took both dogs to a local park to meet again to see if being on neutral territory would help. During Milo's ball play he did allow the puppy to sniff his chest a handful of times but after a while he started to show his teeth again and growl, this time all the puppy did was smell him and when he growled she played dead, we decided then that maybe he just doesn't like this puppy and left.

The question I am hoping to get answered is this normal behaviour? Usually he loves other dogs/puppies and will chase around with them for hours. Is trying to introduce these 2 together a lost cause? Does anyone have any advice of similar experiences they could share?

Any comments would be very helpful and really appreciated.

Thanks

A