Dog Fighting Problem! Need (Trainer) Help! (puppy, best, ears, home)

[shroom]

Have you run full blood panels on both dogs to make sure there are no underlying medical issues that could cause inappropriate behavior? Specifically, test their thyroid levels, as hypothyroidism can cause aggression. Dr Jean Dodds is *the* thyroid expert (Animal Blood Bank and Restore Health Cente).

If all checks out medically, you're likely dealing with behavioral & dominance issues, which can be overcome with dedicated effort and a good behaviorist/trainer. Or it could be that they truly don't like each other. Until you get it resolved, keep the dogs separated. I'm curious as to their ages - are they both youngsters, or mature, or is one young & one mature?

[Amazonchix]

Good call Shroom. My dog ended being a hypothyroid dog! What a difference she was once properly medicated! Our vet continually told us she was fine...but we insisted after 3 visits (over a period of 6-8 onths) to him that we wanted the blood panel ran to rule things out. Her thyroid levels were so low the lab couldn't even detect it! She's doing great now! Needless to say he was shocked, b/c he felt she didn't meet many of the criteria for hypothyroid...but we kept telling him her mood became worse and her energy level dropped.

[riveree]

In the immediate future, I would separate them, but treat them equally - as in equal time with you.

I would also start walking the female right away. It's not fair that she doesn't get the same exercise as the male, and the time spent with you, along with the exercise can only help, not hurt .

Feeding them separately is good, but how does the other dog come around when one is still eating? Maybe putting them behind closed doors until they are finished eating would help.

I've dealt with dominance issues between a female and a male and between 2 females.

Between the 2 females was easy because their energy level was the same and neither was going to back down until I said so. So I would watch them closely when I thought something might errupt and I would separate them for a few minutes so they could "cool down". I also had a zero tolerance policy for nasty growls or snaps - I did not give them an inch. Their issues have died down so much that I can't remember the last time they've had a harsh word, but I still don't allow them alone together unsupervised and probably never will.

Between my female and male, it was different. The female grew up with the male (he was 3 years older...recently deceased). The male was the gentlest dog and never gave the female any reason to start anything, but she would do it anyway. Her issue was, and remains, a displacement issue.

When she cannot get to her "target" (another dog, for instance), she will turn on the dog nearest her. When she would turn on my male, he would cry and not fight back in a serious tone, so she would keep at it until I pulled her off of him. She never broke the skin or really hurt him in any way, it was all about intimidation. I never found a real resolution to this beyond just breaking it up.

It sounds like you cannot leave them alone unsupervised, so crating or dividing the house up in some way will be necessary.

I would also make them sit before they eat, let them know YOU own the food . You can do the same for walks, make them sit first. I'm trying to get my 2 females to do this right now, and it helps. The more they know you're in charge, the less need to fight for dominance.

Good luck!

[jcsam]

Originally Posted by Katie1

Devide the yard in 1/2 or invest in a kennel..set it up in a corner where the dog will have lots of room. Take turns with whos inside it! But it only takes 1 time & 1 dead!!
How long have you had them?

My male (Dozer) is 4 years old and the female (Akira) is 6. Currently I'm just keeping them seperated. I will be having a trainer coming to the house to evaluate the issue.

I usually feed them at different times or in different rooms. I do make them sit when we go for a walk, before we leave the house. I don't do it when they eat, I'll start that tonight. I found that using water from the hose breaks them up pretty fast.

I never thought about having full blood panels ran. I'll have to look into that!

Thanks a million everyone!!!!!

[ILMomof4]

We had the same problems with our boxer and lab mix. When we got the lab Lucian he was 4 months old and Bosco the boxer was 4 years old and for the first year all was well but after that Lucian would pick fights with Bosco so we kept them separate and thought about getting rid of Lucian but while I was in the hospital after having my 4th baby my hubby and I were watching a Dog Whisperer marathon. So we decided that when we got home we would step it up more and really become the dominate ones of the house. And after about a month of really keeping an eye on them and stepping it immediately if there was any sign of aggression from Lucian and of course putting them in a submissive position we have not had any problems and it had been 2 years now. It was really funny the first time someone was over and I noticed Lucian getting edgy and I told my husband to "Put him down" the person looked horrified. We had to explain what put him down meant in our house. I think the problem was Lucian wanted to be the dominate one in the house as he got bigger. We read up on everything we could find online and even asked our vet. He told us the only solution was to find Lucian a new home. Now we have 2 happy playful big boys and no more fighting problems I really think Ceasar Milan is great.

[Junos]

Originally Posted by ILMomof4

We had the same problems with our boxer and lab mix. When we got the lab Lucian he was 4 months old and Bosco the boxer was 4 years old and for the first year all was well but after that Lucian would pick fights with Bosco so we kept them separate and thought about getting rid of Lucian but while I was in the hospital after having my 4th baby my hubby and I were watching a Dog Whisperer marathon. So we decided that when we got home we would step it up more and really become the dominate ones of the house. And after about a month of really keeping an eye on them and stepping it immediately if there was any sign of aggression from Lucian and of course putting them in a submissive position we have not had any problems and it had been 2 years now. It was really funny the first time someone was over and I noticed Lucian getting edgy and I told my husband to "Put him down" the person looked horrified. We had to explain what put him down meant in our house. I think the problem was Lucian wanted to be the dominate one in the house as he got bigger. We read up on everything we could find online and even asked our vet. He told us the only solution was to find Lucian a new home. Now we have 2 happy playful big boys and no more fighting problems I really think Ceasar Milan is great.

This is great news. Thanks all for your advice and thoughts on this. As soon as my female heals I'm going to start this "Put em down" as you say. I was not doing this.

[ILMomof4]

We found the trick was not to let them up until they calmed down when we let the other dog come close to them. At first this did take two people. One to keep the aggressive dog down and another to coax the other dog to come near. Good Luck to you.

[PitBullMommie1206]

Originally Posted by jcsam

Hello All,

I have two American Bulldogs. 1 Male, 1 Female. They have both been through dog obiedience training, nothing more. I walk to male sometimes (I need to do this more, since weather is better I can) I don't walk the Female much becuase she's just crazy on the leash (she needs a lot of work, I'm going to start working on this..).

On one side of us we have a family that has 3 dogs. Behind us they have 1. Anytime all the animals are out, my Male will go up to the fence and in essence take control of the it. He will not let my Female near it, if she does come near it he attacks her. Sometimes she attacks first. I think(??) becuase she wants to be near the fence and the other dogs.

This sometimes happens when I feed them. I feed them in seperate rooms and if one comes near the other, the fight is on! Any ideas about how to try to fix this issue without getting rid of one of them, would be great.

Other details: Whenever they get in the same room, tails go up and ears back for the most part. It's like they just can't stand each other. Vet bills are just killing me.

Any links for good sites that talk about this? Anything? Any help would be great!

Thanks all!

I know exactly what you're going through and how unbelievably hard, stressful and heartbreaking it is! My husband and I own 3 APBTs. A male named Brooklyn and 2 females named Destiny and Jayda. As I'm sure you know, APBTs are a breed that does tend to be somewhat dog aggressive, but my husband and I have worked very hard, and continue to work very hard, to make sure our dogs are very well socialized and trained. Both of our females are extremely human and dog friendly, and our male is extremely human friendly, but he's not exactly dog friendly all of the time. I wouldn't go as far as to say he's dog aggressive, it just takes him a little while to get use to new dogs sometimes.

We got Brooklyn 1st, when he was about 8 weeks old, and for the longest time he was our only dog. Once Brooklyn got a bit older and calmed down some, we decided we wanted another APBT, that's when we got Destiny. Now, I won't go into the long story about how we got Desy and what happened when we got her, but Brooklyn didn't really have a problem with Desy and I think it was because she was so tiny and Brooklyn could sense that she was really weak, so he didn't feel threatened by her. About 6 months after we got Desy we found out that our neighbors that lived 2 houses down from us had just moved out and abandoned their 7 1/2 month old female APBT! That same night we decided to take her in. We knew Brooklyn wouldn't like Jayda right off the bat, but we assumed he would get use to her like he has done with any other dog he didn't like to start with. We didn't expect things to get as bad as they did though, and we didn't expect it to take so long for Brooklyn to fully accept her.

Once we brought Jayda home everything changed! After a day or 2 Destiny and Jayda loved each other, but Brooklyn wanted to kill Jayda still. We had to always keep Jayda and Brooklyn separated. However, after a while, Brooklyn started to do better with Jayda, you could tell he didn't really like her, but he put up with her. Obviously we never left them unattended together, but they were doing well enough for us to not have to keep them separated. Anyway, when it was just Brooklyn and Desy we would feed them out of their crates and we never had a problem. I mean, we kept their food bowls across the room from each other just to avoid any issues, but we never had any problems. After Jayda and Brooklyn got to the point where they could be around each other is when the real problems started. One day when I went into the kitchen to fix their food, they all ran to the edge of the kitchen to sit and wait like they always do, and then next thing I know Brooklyn is going after Jayda! Jayda was screaming and Brooklyn was barking, growling and snapping at her and had her backed into a cornor! I lost it! I thought he was killing her! Not thinking, I dropped everything and ran to grab Brooklyn, but as soon as I got Brooklyn off of Jayda (who wasn't hurt at all by the way ) Jayda jumped up and went after Brooklyn! Again, not thinking, I blocked Brooklyn with my leg soJayda wouldn't hurt him and Jayda got my leg! As soon as I yelled she realized what she had done and stopped. After that though, I put them in their crates and fed them like that. I found out that Brooklyn didn't even touch Jayda, thank God, he was just trying to show her that he was the boss I guess. Which he is not! We quickly found out that any time Jayda is around food, toys, bones, anything like that, even if she's not eating the food or playing with the toys, Brooklyn will attack her!

Anyway, it got so bad that we really started to think we would have to find Brooklyn or Jayda a new home. Instead of doing that though, we decided to just make things work. We changed everything! We started to feed the dogs in their crates, we started to keep all of the toys and bones put up at all times, unless they were in their crates, we only gave them treats if they were in their crates or if they were separated, etc, etc, etc. We also started to exercise them more, we came up with a schedule and we stick to it as much as possible and most importantly, we established our dominance and make sure we worked every day to keep our places as the pack leaders.

To establish our dominance we did things like claim all of the rooms in our home, the sofas the bed, the table, etc, etc, etc. We made it to where the dogs were not allowed to go into the kitchen at all, no matter what. They are never allowed around the table, they are only allowed in the main part of the house (they can't go into any of the rooms unless they are with us and have permission to be there), they aren't allowed on the sofa or bed unless they are invited up, etc, etc, etc. This way they know that they are in our home and they will respect our rules.

As for the schedule, we obviously can't stick to the same schedule every day, but we try as hard as we can. Dogs do way better on a schedule. We can't talk to them and let them know what is going on, so when certain things happen around the same time every day, they know what to expect. The things that are most important for us to stick to would be feeding times, walks and when we go to sleep. We make sure we feed them at the same time every morning and every afternoon, we walk them around the same time every day, and we try to go to bed around the same time every night.

Now, to get to the exercise.. Obviously it's wonderful for dogs to get a chance to get some good exercise every day, but I don't think a lot of people realize what a great chance it is to establish your dominance. Walks are such an important thing! We make sure we take our dogs for at least 1 very good walk every day, but we try very hard to walk them 3-2 times a day, and each walk is about 45-60 minutes. When we walk our dogs we don't just walk around following them and watching them sniff everything like a lot of people do. We take our dogs on structured walks. Our dogs are never allowed to walk in front of us, that would make them the pack leaders in their minds because we are following them. They have to stay next to us or behind us. Also, for the first half of the walk, they aren't allowed to sniff all over the place, they have to walk nicely with us, then, if they do that, they earn the privilege of sniffing around for the 2nd half of the walk. Even then through, they do things on our terms. We also try to take our dogs on individual walks and then a walk all together. Walking the dogs individually gives you a chance to spend some one-on-one time with each dog, and that dog gets some time to get all of the attention. However, dogs are pack animals and packs travel together, so walking them all together helps them accept each other as members of the same pack. The walks have made a HUGE difference!

Since we have changed the way we do things, we have not had a problem with any of our dogs getting into fights.

[pit_crew]

You are going to have to find a way to separate them. Go ahead and do the blood panel thing, but generally speaking at their age it is better to just fix them and separate them. Give each one equal time and all will be ok.. Never let them run loose. If they have a drop of APBT in them you are not going to get it out of them without A TON of work.

[Erma]

They both have alpha personalities. I would do what someone suggested and that's to divide the yard or have two outdoor kennels for them near the fence and feed them in there while their in their own domain.