Have you ever had to fight another dog off when it was attacking your own.A few weeks ago a guys pitbull broke its leash and attacked my dog at which point my kicking skills were utilized to great effect
[HEADING=2]How to Stop Dogs From Fighting in Your Household[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]A challenge of having two or more dogs in the same house is the possibility of your dogs fighting and having to defuse that situation. If your dog is suddenly aggressive to your other dog or attacks other dogs in the house seemingly for no reason, here is how to help your two dogs get along.[/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]DOGS FIGHTING IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD: WHAT TO DO[/HEADING]
[LIST=1]
[/HR]
Knowledgeable dog people are quite aware that not all dogs get along with each other, despite the fact that canis lupus familiaris (domestic dog) is a social species. Hey, we humans are a social species, and we certainly don’t all get along! Two dogs fighting within the same household is unhappily common in our world. As a professional behavior consultant who works with aggressive dogs (dogs with challenging aggressive behaviors), I probably see more than my fair share of it. By far the most difficult and most distressing presentations of tension between dogs are interdog aggression cases: dogs in the same family who aren’t getting along with each other.
Sarah Richardson
I’ve had a spate of these clients in recent weeks. Even our own Lucy and Missy, a Cardigan Corgi and Australian Shepherd who don’t always get along seamlessly, seem to have experienced an increase in relationship tensions this winter. I can’t give you a tidy explanation as to why, but I’m beginning to put more stock in the explanation jokingly offered by my dog-trainer colleague, Jennifer Swiggart, CPDT-KA, PMCT, when she called it “snow aggression.”
[HEADING=1]Why Do Dogs Fight?[/HEADING]
Why do dogs attack other dogs in the house? Far from a case of dog sibling rivalry, when one dog attacks the other in the house, the reason is stress. With the very rare exception of idiopathic aggression – at one time called “[url]rage syndrome[/url],” “Cocker rage,” or “Springer rage” and grossly over-diagnosed in the 1960s and ’70s – aggression is the result of a stress load that pushes a dog over his bite threshold.
You can compare it to incidents of “road rage” in humans. When you read about the man who pulls out his .38 revolver because someone cut him off on the freeway and blows away the unfortunate offending driver, you can bet there was more going on for him than just a simple traffic violation. This is the guy who was likely laid off his job, lost his retirement investments, had his wife tell him this morning that she was leaving him, and just got notice in the mail that the bank is foreclosing on his home. Getting cut off on the freeway is simply the last straw – the final stressor that pushes him over his “bite threshold.”
So it is for dogs. When tensions increase between Missy and Lucy, I need to look for possible added stressors in their environment that are pushing them closer to, and yes, sometimes over, their bite threshold. From that perspective, “snow aggression” is a real possibility: With recent record snowfalls reaching a total of 50 inches here, the resulting decrease in exercise opportunities, as well as higher stress levels of human family members who aren’t fond of snow (guilty!), can be stressors for the canine family members.
To resolve aggression issues between your own dogs, you’ll want to identify not only the immediate trigger for the aggression – fighting over a meaty bone, for example – but also everything in your dog’s life that may be stressful to him. The more stressors you can remove from his world, the less likely it is that he will use his teeth – the canine equivalent of pulling out a .38 revolver.
[HEADING=1]Common Stressors for Dogs[/HEADING]
Stress in dogs can happen anytime and be anywhere. Remember that it’s the sum total of a dog’s stress that pushes him over his bite threshold, so the more of his stressors you can identify and get rid of, the more you’ll ease tensions between your canine family members.
When I sit down with a client for an interdog aggression consult we create a list of all the stressors we can think of for the dogs in question.
After identifying stressors, we discuss possible strategies, assigning one or more strategies to each of the listed stressors. These strategies are:
– Change the dog’s opinion of the stressor through the use of counter-conditioning and desensitization.
– Teach the dog a new behavioral response using operant conditioning.
– Manage the dog’s environment to minimize exposure to the stressor.
– Get rid of the stressor.
I have never had that experience and if such should happen, I'm definitely going to do the same. I would go to any extent to protect my dog. If I can sue the dog owner for damages I would if it's possible.
I watched a video on YouTube the other day where a python was trying to swallow a dog. Three guys saw it and struggled with the python till they were able to free the dog. They also let the python go. Personally, I would have killed the damn snake .
My dog was attacked by a neighbor's dog while we were on our walk. The neighbor opened her garage door and her golden retriever, who was a very sweet dog, ran and bit my dog. I think she thought my dog was a rabbit or something? At first I didn't know what to do, but I told the dog to SIT and she did. I can't believe it worked!
@pennilove7 The dog was obviously well trained. It's the only reason why she adhered to your instruction for her to sit down. Maybe, it's also because she's not too aggressive because some dogs that are like that hardly listened to instructions that's not from their owner.
I will always defend my dog against everything that is bigger and stronger than him because I am there to protect him all the time and whenever another dog attacks my dog, I will not take it lightly with the dog and even the owner.
If I have a gun with me, I will shot another dog that comes to attack my dog. I don't care who owns the dog but the safety of my own dog comes first. If a dog owner doesn't know how to have their dogs under leash and control, they deserve to be killed for attacking people.
Have you ever had to fight another dog off when it was attacking your own.A few weeks ago a guys pitbull broke its leash and attacked my dog at which point my kicking skills were utilized to great effect
If not that I love dogs and I can't bring myself to harm or hurt another dog, I wouldn't mind killing another dog which decide to attack my own dog. Once they threaten the life of my own dog, there's not going to considered by me.
Even if my dog can defend himself against another dog attacking him, I'm not going to stand by watching happen. I would definitely get involved and make sure the mad dog doesn't hurt my own dog in any way.
Have you ever had to fight another dog off when it was attacking your own.A few weeks ago a guys pitbull broke its leash and attacked my dog at which point my kicking skills were utilized to great effect
I nearly killed another dog for attempting to injure my dog. That was many years ago when my dog was still little. I did not like what happened and ended up injuring the other dogs, although I regretted later.
I haven't had such experience but our neighbour encountered that some years back. Her dog was being attacked by another vicious dog and as she was trying to fight the dog off, she got bitten by that dog. It was at the mercy of onlookers that she was saved and the dog got the beating of her life.