Dog Training: Dog Aggression Between Housemates
When two dogs in the same home start fighting, it’s a frightening and extremely urgent situation. The tension between both dogs is pliable, and pet owners are often frustrated, yet hopeful. If your dogs are fighting, follow these steps today. Don’t hesitate because this situation will not get better on its own.
Why Are Your Dogs Fighting?
Many pet owners dwell on the exact cause for the fighting between their dogs. As a professional dog trainer, it’s extremely hard to pinpoint the exact cause for the dog on dog aggression in the home, but it’s evident that tension has been present long before their fighting began.
Dogs protect resources, such as food, toys, treats, beds, space and humans. Additionally, overly anxious dogs will redirect their frustration onto their housemate. Regardless of the reason, it’s important to understand this situation will only get worse until it’s addressed with a professional dog trainer or veterinary behaviorist.
What Should You Do First?
Prevent your dogs from meeting or seeing each other. Never allow dogs to fight it out or work it out for their spot in the pack because this never works. Allowing dogs to fight only makes the situation much worse and is considered torture for both dogs. Plus, it’s not fair to the dog being attacked over and over; his or her life is a living hell.
Separate both dogs to opposite sides of the house. Keep doors firmly closed and place gates to prevent fighting. Bring one dog out to potty at a time, and ensure each dog is securely confined in his or her area before letting the other dog out to potty. Preventing fights stops your dogs from practicing the behavior while keeping each dog safe.
Get Professional Help
Pet owners with squabbling dogs need professional help. It’s impossible to prevent housemates from fighting, even with management, without intense dog behavior modification. Contact a professional dog trainer or veterinary behaviorist immediately, and keep all dogs separated until a professional can help you implement behavior protocols.
While it’s tempting to seek advice online, it’ll be difficult to find specific answers for your case unless a professional has met each fighting dog and the environment. If someone does offer advice without meeting your dogs, that person is doing a disservice to your household.
Find a local professional immediately for best results. Plus, make sure the professional has extensive knowledge with dog aggression and uses positive reinforcement training only. Punishment will only make the problem worse.
I just got I would pass this little bit of information along in case it might help I have a three-year-old miniature Aussie, male, unneutered. A 3 year old Great Dane also male and in neutered and a 7 year old female, neutered Husky Pit mix in the same home.
All of a sudden one day the Great Dane and the mini Aussie started fighting for no apparent reason. Needless to say I was very concerned especially with the size of the Great Dane. I knew if things got too aggressive one bite and the Aussie could be gone. I struggled for months trying to figure out how to resolve this problem, I even hired a pet psychiatrist. I was willing to do anything that would help me resolve my issue. Make a long story short the whole problem at least in my situation was that each dog especially the Aussie was not receiving enough individual playtime. My Mini Australian Shepherd always wants to play with the tennis ball. For us to throw it and he fetches it back and then do it all over again. He will actually do this for hours if we had the time or energy. If he doesn’t get enough playtime so he can exert his energy he becomes an extremely unhappy dog. Honestly it’s as if he is a whole different dog. After at least six months of this extremely stressful situation between the dogs I noticed if I gave the Great Dane enough tug-of-war time and the mini Aussie enough ball time we have a happy home. I let him keep the ball and he will walk around with it in his mouth almost all day for someone to throw it. It took me a while to figure it out but I noticed if the Aussie didn’t get enough play time he would lay around and randomly growl which of course the great Dane reacted to quite quickly. I now give my Aussie a lot of ball throwing time at the great Dane a lot of taco what time and the fighting has stopped.
After lots of research the outcome was obvious but just not to me. The mini Australian Shepherd’s are extremely active dogs along with being a herding dog. They haven’t brought it into them and they need to be able to exert their energy or they’re just not happy with themselves. I guess they feel like it is their job to herd and fetching must take the place of him. I’m not sure but at least I know longer have the dog on dog aggression Issue. I don’t know if ithis will help anyone else but I thought it was worth putting out there. Especially since it was such an easy fix and was not mentioned in any of the posts that I had read online, which I will admit was a bunch. I hope that this may help at least one other person out there. Good luck to all and remember there’s a reason we may just not know why dogs do what they do
Thank you for sharing your story. I was searching for advise why my dogs fight lately but I think we might have the same problem you had. I have a one year old hound mix and a 2.5 year old Lab mix. I will try to give them more alone play time hope it will help. Thank you.
I don’t know if this would be considered acceptable among the dog training people, but I’ve always yelled really loud whenever any of my dog’s suddenly decided to get evil with each other, and that has always ended the fight. I’d also grab one and pull them away from the other one, usually. I don’t know if that’s playing alpha dog in this situation, or what. I do know that it’s worked. It’s mostly just my reaction to all of the sweet dogs I’ve ever had that they would suddenly start acting that way. I’ve never seen evidence that any of them have ever fought in this way when I wasn’t around.
Sometimes screaming can make dog fights worse….. be careful. If your dogs are fighting, then I would seek help from a positive reinforcement dog trainer.