Best friends fighting

Any good behaviorist will always tell you, without see the dogs in person, there is no telling how to correct the issue.

Seek professional counsel or one trained in animal husbandry as quickly as possible. Pack dynamics are complicated and take years of study before truly understanding them. Until then, keep the dogs separated since you are unsure of your next step. Irreparable damage could be done.

As far as being pack leader or alpha, this is a slippery slope in dog training. Humans should never aspire to be alpha or pack leader as so many claim. Dogs do not look upon humans as other dogs or part of the pack. Dogs are cognitive that humans are outside the pack and superior. Within a pack, the leader/alpha of the pack will be decided and challenged among them. A human intervening does two things, both negative:

1) It diminishes the human's exercise of control.
2) It creates more strife among the dogs.

This being said, humans do have dominion and must assert this. Humans are to be a benevolent leader and in that comes great responsibility to those animals in their care.
 
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Strider said:
No great source of wisdom for you here other than get yourself a small squirt bottle that has at least a 10 foot range. When they start fighting, shoot them with water. It will break them up without having you reach in between them.

Deja and Darby still get into fights and they have been together their whole lives (starting at 8 weeks). They have never drawn blood but if you heard them fighting you'd think one was killing the other..

There are some good training programs for teaching two over the top dogs to be tolerant but the experts say that this can't really be trusted. Be careful with whatever you do and remeber that changing behavoirs take time and consistancy :)
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Supersoaker :lol:
 
This all reminds me of the Shelties I grew up with!! My mom bred a liter, she kept one Sable male and my grandparents kept one also! WELL, they grew up together, played together, were trained together, etc, etc. Bo Jangles, my Grandma's started to HATE our Laddie boy, to the point of fighting and drawing blood one time, even taking part of Laddies ear off :dead:. :no:. Bo would only have to see Laddie from a distance and want to go for blood.

My mom and grandma separated a few horrible fights with brooms and water, then it was obvious they could no longer ever be together. We couldnt even bring Laddie to grandma's house with Bo closed in a room because no matter how well we separated them, Bo would go spastic. And by the way, these were both neutered males!
 
Wow! That's sad. I wonder what would cause that type of long term aggresion.. Was it only against that dog?
 
JamCrackers said:
Any good behaviorist will always tell you, without see the dogs in person, there is no telling how to correct the issue.

Seek professional counsel or one trained in animal husbandry as quickly as possible. Pack dynamics are complicated and take years of study before truly understanding them. Until then, keep the dogs separated since you are unsure of your next step. Irreparable damage could be done.

As far as being pack leader or alpha, this is a slippery slope in dog training. Humans should never aspire to be alpha or pack leader as so many claim. Dogs do not look upon humans as other dogs or part of the pack. Dogs are cognitive that humans are outside the pack and superior. Within a pack, the leader/alpha of the pack will be decided and challenged among them. A human intervening does two things, both negative:

1) It diminishes the human's exercise of control.
2) It creates more strife among the dogs.

This being said, humans do have dominion and must assert this. Humans are to be a benevolent leader and in that comes great responsibility to those animals in their care.
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wow, WELL SAID, thank you for that. I agree

When I have Scotty over for a visit, both eat out of same bowl for a snack/treat etc, I don't make a big deal of it, i expect them to not fight. Besides the time one of them takes to growl, takes away the food intake, and the other may get more licks of the bowl in than the other, lol

When they get spazzy over a toy or a chew bone I take it away. They can sneak and steal each other stuff, but aren't allowed to fight over it... because then it goes. I taught both to give it to me when one of them is growling, so it never escalates to a fight.

I wouldn't let them have resources when you are not around.
 
Today has been very peaceful- no fighting. Cooper seems to be taking a more submissive position. They even played peacefully. I'm still working on an appointment with the behaviorist. I only have e-mail contact info and she's really busy but we are working towards scheduling a time. I realize that without her seeing them interact she can't do anything.
 
Strider said:
Wow! That's sad. I wonder what would cause that type of long term aggresion.. Was it only against that dog?
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My dog Jazz and my dad's lab hated each other, from the moment they met. They walked up to each other circled sniffed, turned walked away about 20 ft, both of them looked over their shoulders and they locked eyes and charged each other like two sumo wrestlers and WWIII was on. The only way we got them apart was they were dragging leads. They could never be in the same room with out fighting. Jazz had known dominance aggression issues(good as long as the other dog defered which 99.9% did with only a look from her) and Bell is very dominant as well. Since they didn't need to live together,we never worked on it.

I second the behaviorist. These situations are too complex for the internet.
 
Justicemom said:
My dog Jazz and my dad's lab hated each other, from the moment they met. They walked up to each other circled sniffed, turned walked away about 20 ft, both of them looked over their shoulders and they locked eyes and charged each other like two sumo wrestlers and WWIII was on. The only way we got them apart was they were dragging leads. They could never be in the same room with out fighting. Jazz had known dominance aggression issues(good as long as the other dog defered which 99.9% did with only a look from her) and Bell is very dominant as well. Since they didn't need to live together,we never worked on it.

I second the behaviorist. These situations are too complex for the internet.
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It was as if my Laddie Boy had a "pick on me" sign on him all of his life. It didn't matter where we took him, if there was another dog around, m/f, he/she would come charging after him. My mom would have to pick him up and walk/run the other direction. It got to the point that my mom could only take him on walks real early in the morning when no other pets were out.

Laddie was the most sweet, compliant, doscile animal you could have so we never understood why other dogs hated him so much :no:
 
Megansmom said:
It was as if my Laddie Boy had a "pick on me" sign on him all of his life. It didn't matter where we took him, if there was another dog around, m/f, he/she would come charging after him. My mom would have to pick him up and walk/run the other direction. It got to the point that my mom could only take him on walks real early in the morning when no other pets were out.

Laddie was the most sweet, compliant, doscile animal you could have so we never understood why other dogs hated him so much :no:
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Justice's Grandpa was the same way. His owner could never understand why all the dogs went for him. One day I was sitting with his breeder and he walked in the training building with his owner. Within 2 minutes,he challenged every dog in the building with a look and his body language as he walked by. We pointed it out to his owner who had no idea he did that, he was so sweet and calm. That's why it is hard to work on these things over the net.:smile2:
 
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