Aggression issue

[Strider]

Bad move to bring out food. Food is a very important resource for dogs. Even though you were sharing treats, you were giving out food on Darby's territory, so in a dog's mind, Darby's treats. He went for the youngest and the last one introduced. Dogs will generally target whichever dog they percieve as the 'weakest' when they want to make a point.

Luckily dogs are very forgiving, and you can try introducing them again and they will probably have forgotten the incident. Just dont bring out food for the dogs and if you are going to give the dogs food, seperate them. Its also better not to introduce toys either (or anything else the dogs value)

On xmas day at my brother's home for lunch my mum gave the dogs a bag of treats (I did tell her not to). Now my brother's dog was so happy to see my pups until the treats came out - and then he pinched the lot of them. My dogs, being older, deferred to Jaspar on his turf and let him take all the treats - after all, Deska does the exact same thing to other dogs when they are in his yard (he will even bite other dogs). Needless to say, I went out and removed all the treats.

You are talking about adolescent dogs who are still working out doggy ettiquette, so Darby's over the top reaction is not unusual.

PS - ask your SIL if he is always bringing out resources (treats or toys) for willow when other dogs are around, might be why she is being attacked.

Sorry about the long post - post-xmas brain fatigue.

In hindsight, the treats were a bad idea. I think you might be hitting it close to what motivated the whole thing. Darby and Deja seem to be doing fine now. I'm filing this away for future reference though. Bite me once, shame on you.. bite me twice, shame on me. (metaphoriclly speaking hehe)

 

[Strider]

Yes
There is (go figure a Lab, sorry Earnhardt, lol) Chevvy, who ALWAYS gets attacked at the dogpark, I swear it is his Energy! He's just too happy! lol

That's the one Toffee had the standoff with, when he was successfully stopped from an impending fight with the 'watch me' command...
His owner said, that Chevy always gets it from all the dogs, lol
The other one is also a Lab puppy, Mable... Was the pitbull a puppy as well? If not then maybe its because Puppies have different rules, and as mentioned before Toffee really hates Puppies, but submissive and/or over excited LAB PUPPIES in particular...
I really think that Labs just don't have any common sense til they are about 5, LOL
But then that's just my personal observation, probably cannot be scientifically proven LOL

The pitbull is 5 and a sweetheart. She is teaching Darby to french-kiss (sigh.. thank GOD his cherries are bottled, could you imagine a pit/jack cross? Hmm.. new designer breed, Jackbull!)

I'm thinking it was the food domination thing and that they are puppies..

 

[danisgoat]

The pitbull is 5 and a sweetheart. She is teaching Darby to french-kiss (sigh.. thank GOD his cherries are bottled, could you imagine a pit/jack cross? Hmm.. new designer breed, Jackbull!)

I'm thinking it was the food domination thing and that they are puppies..

If the pitbull reacted bad before as well....then I guess the Lab must not be giving off good vibes, lol.

I think the nail was hit on the head with the food theory.

 

[vicky2]

Here's an idea, maybe the lab was taken from the breeder too early and was never socialized properly. Maybe because of that she doesn't know how to act around other dogs.

 

[romeosangiovese]

Oh dear. Poor little lab! It could be a socialisation issue. The lab might be showing the others all the wrong body language, kind of the human equivalent of walking into a room and spitting on everyone?

I attended a dog seminar recently and the person giving the seminar suggested that dogs smell differently depending on their diet. He's all into the wolf pack and hierarchies and he says all dogs are born into their respective status and it doesn't change. There's the alpha, the aloof one who makes the decisions in the pack, then the beta who is the executor, the doer and apparently the one you see at dog runs posturing over other dogs, then the rest, the omega, etc. There is a point to this - bear with me!

Alpha dogs eat the good parts of prey, ie. the liver, the heart, etc. Whereas the lower ranking dogs eat other parts. Because different ranking dogs eat different parts of prey, alphas smell different from lower ranking ones. And because each dog is born into their ranking, if they try to increase their ranking they get knocked down by higher ranking dogs. If a lower ranking dog eats alot of liver, he may appear to be status seeking and might get undesirable attention from other (higher ranking) dogs as a result.

I don't know how true this is but Romeo used to get picked on ALOT and I do mean ALOT. And I was feeding him alot of liver at that time. Then I stopped and gave most meat treats and he didn't get that kind of attention. I recently returned to giving him liver and he started getting that kind of attention again. Coincidence? I don't know. Something to think about? Maybe! For those of us with dogs that always seem to get into trouble!! Is Willow eating alot of liver?