After meal problem

[HopeShelties]

The reason crating/seperating is being pushed is because your dogs are at the point of FIGHTING one another. Crating them/seperating them while eating (all of ten minutes perhaps) would prevent them from being able to do this to one another.
If it were me, I'd much rather have my dogs apart while they ate, and NOT have to deal with fighting/food aggression issues.
Your dogs are NOT happy with the current arrangement. If they were, they wouldn't be fighting after eating. Something's got to give before it gets worse and one badly injures the other. That something may just have to be seperation while eating.

 

[Smudge]

That is absolutely fine, if it works for you.
BTW, how many of you out there that use crates, find that if you leave the door open, your dogs go in to it to nap?

Fluffy loves her crate, and Smudge is slowly getting there. There are not kept in there all day. Only at night, when nobody is home (three people live here), or when I am feeding.

 

[tofu pup]

The reason crating/seperating is being pushed is because your dogs are at the point of FIGHTING one another. Crating them/seperating them while eating (all of ten minutes perhaps) would prevent them from being able to do this to one another.
If it were me, I'd much rather have my dogs apart while they ate, and NOT have to deal with fighting/food aggression issues.
Your dogs are NOT happy with the current arrangement. If they were, they wouldn't be fighting after eating. Something's got to give before it gets worse and one badly injures the other. That something may just have to be seperation while eating.

In-deed.

I know you've said that space is at a premium in your home, and that you really don't want to crate, but honestly, giving each dog a totally separate and secure area to eat in (where YOU are 100% in-control of when and how they meet up again after the meal) is the fastest and safest way to deal with this problem.

If you have a spare bedroom with a door... if you have a bathroom with a door... if you can feed one dog upstairs and one downstairs, with a babygate in between... if you can feed one dog on the porch and the other in the kitchen... you can separate them securely for the duration of the meal. They need to know that they aren't going to meet up again until The Boss (that's you) allows it, and that you aren't going to allow them to antagonize each other. And yes, that may well mean an on-leash, controlled re-introduction with distractions each time for a little while. Simply feeding them in separate parts of the house where one can run over to the other at any time just isn't working.

It's wonderful that your girls are otherwise very well-behaved - so it sounds like this is just a bump in the road, and that with intelligent management of mealtimes, they can overcome it. However, I don't think there's any substitute for giving both of them separate, secure spaces where they can eat.

 

[Justicemom]

Thanks for asking the questions.....


One other thing that might indicate something is that the less aggressive one (Shady) tends to lay her head across CoCo's back at her shoulders when they are just standing around. Not sure what that means either.

I was just looking back at the posts to give you other suggestions and noticed this. This is a classic dominance singal known as a T. The more dominant dog will put their head across the submissive dogs neck and shoudlers. So Shady is telling CoCo that she is in charge. Since you are not seeing aggression outside feeding time CoCo is defering to Shady. Giving her a signal that she will accept her leadership. So Shady does not need to reinforce her position(agress). When food is thrown into the mix, CoCo is not OK with defering, so she strikes out at Shady. Rarely will the submissive dog challenge the higher ranking one. At the times Shady starts it I suspect there is a challenge from Coco. A challenge is not usually aggression it is a stare or body posture. The problem is the girls are too close in social position or nearly the same energy.

I including a website that may help you understand the issue.
http://www.petplace.com/dogs/inter-dog-dominance-aggression/page1.aspx

 

[Megansmom]

I was just looking back at the posts to give you other suggestions and noticed this. This is a classic dominance singal known as a T. The more dominant dog will put their head across the submissive dogs neck and shoudlers. So Shady is telling CoCo that she is in charge. Since you are not seeing aggression outside feeding time CoCo is defering to Shady. Giving her a signal that she will accept her leadership. So Shady does not need to reinforce her position(agress). When food is thrown into the mix, CoCo is not OK with defering, so she strikes out at Shady. Rarely will the submissive dog challenge the higher ranking one. At the times Shady starts it I suspect there is a challenge from Coco. A challenge is not usually aggression it is a stare or body posture. The problem is the girls are too close in social position or nearly the same energy.

I including a website that may help you understand the issue.
http://www.petplace.com/dogs/inter-dog-dominance-aggression/page1.aspx

Excellent insight JusticeMom!! You are one of the many members here who offer excellent, fact based, easy to understand advice and suggestions.

 

[king buddy]

Excellent insight JusticeMom!! You are one of the many members here who offer excellent, fact based, easy to understand advice and suggestions.

I loved this article. Exellent information. I have a friend who comes and stays sometines and her chihuahua mix and my Chihuahua fight really bad. My little pepita may be small but she is the next female inline after me. Sh will not back down to this dog. My friends dog will stare her down and wow what a mess. This has given me some insite to the problems. I also shared this with my friend.

 

[ScottinBend]

I was just looking back at the posts to give you other suggestions and noticed this. This is a classic dominance singal known as a T. The more dominant dog will put their head across the submissive dogs neck and shoudlers. So Shady is telling CoCo that she is in charge. Since you are not seeing aggression outside feeding time CoCo is defering to Shady. Giving her a signal that she will accept her leadership. So Shady does not need to reinforce her position(agress). When food is thrown into the mix, CoCo is not OK with defering, so she strikes out at Shady. Rarely will the submissive dog challenge the higher ranking one. At the times Shady starts it I suspect there is a challenge from Coco. A challenge is not usually aggression it is a stare or body posture. The problem is the girls are too close in social position or nearly the same energy.

I including a website that may help you understand the issue.
http://www.petplace.com/dogs/inter-dog-dominance-aggression/page1.aspx

Thanks so much for this excellent post. This is what we have been thinking and have been trying to reinforce Shady's "dominance" by feeding her first. So far the kong treat after feeding has been working so we have our fingers crossed. We are going to start feeding the dogs in separate rooms with the doors closed and leave them in there for 15-30 mins and see how that works.