Dog on dog aggression

pboae

kaya wrote: »

there is also no evidence that human behaviour has no effect on hierarchy in dogs either, not sure about the grammer in that line?
im sorry if it comes across as arrogant but this seems like basic stuff to me, how can you expect your dog to be able to dispaly leadership qualities and head the pack when it lives in your house, under your rules, eats when you feed it, goes out when you take it etc..
your expecting a dog to behave as it would in the wild but cageing it up in your life/house and expecting it to behave under your rules----surely you can see the conflict there for the animal? i would certainly find living under those conditions difficult

Sorry, I obviously didn't make myself very clear.

A human can try to reinforce one dog's position as much as they wish, but in the vast morjity of cases it won't make a blind bit of difference to the final outcome. It might extend the process, or add additional tensions and conflicts, but it won't determine the eventual ranks.

Even if you go by pack theory, the alpha animal does not determine the relative rackings of the rest of the pack. That's something they have to work out for themselves.

But I don't expect domesticated dogs to behave as wild dogs do (which is why I don't have a great deal of faith in the whole alpha leader stuff, but that's another discussion really). But I do accept that they still exhibit some behaviours which are driven by extremely stong instincts, and unfortunately this is one of those situations.

It is (sometimes) possible to train a dog to ignore those instincts and behave in a way the human wants them to behave, but it depends on the dog and the human.

I have seen a well trained military service (intact) dog sit next to an in-season b!tch and maintain the sit/stay. The dog was shuddering with the effort involved, but it still stayed. But it would be extremely optimistic to expect most people to be able to achieve that level of training with most dogs.

Equally, it is sometimes possible to train to b!tches to live together, despite their feelings. But it is not easy, and there is no guarantees at the end of it. It's not a training challenge I would be keen to take on.




Guinea, sorry that has gone somewhat OT, I see from you profile that you are in Buckinghamshire, Sarah Whitehead is in that area, and she is supposed to be one of the best in the country, http://www.dogtrain.co.uk/ So if you are looking to try another behaviourist, it might be worth speaking to her. (Unless she's the one you went to already, obviously ).

kaya

"Sorry, I obviously didn't make myself very clear.

A human can try to reinforce one dog's position as much as they wish, but in the vast morjity of cases it won't make a blind bit of difference to the final outcome. It might extend the process, or add additional tensions and conflicts, but it won't determine the eventual ranks.

Even if you go by pack theory, the alpha animal does not determine the relative rackings of the rest of the pack. That's something they have to work out for themselves.

"HI Pboae, i agree with the above in its entirety when discussing animals, but not with humans, whilst you cannot really force the position of "pack leader" on one animal as you said it is very easy for the human to become "pack leader" which leaves only subordinate positions available, when my dog starts paying the mortgage and buying the shopping weekly i may consider her for the position of pack leader, but how could i allow her that privelage when she cant even turn the oven on?
apart from the pack leader(usually the stronger or "alpha" male) and his !!!!!(who is chosen by the pack leader) there are no other relative rankings available to squabble over in a pack, unless im missing something? After 40 years of living with and around livestock of all kinds i have yet to see any of this "!!!!! on !!!!!" agression that is being referred to, when i was born my father was an RSPCA inspector, my parents then brought a pet shop followed by being head herdsmen on a dairy farm for a number of years, my brother is a farrier and my sister/aunt and cousins all own horses/smallholdings, apart from recently all my family have had at least two dogs living together, usually more, my grandad had gundogs and my mum bred german shepherd dogs for years followed by shelties which used to show at crufts, apart from one miserable little rescue dog called "topsy" which my nan owned when i was really young and hated everybody all the dogs have lived in relative harmony together, many of the dogs have been rescue dogs and not taken on at a young age, out of the eight grandchildren my nan has none of us has ever been bitten or attacked by any of the dogs, they all lived indoors and were treated as pets, ranging from great danes down to jack russels, i have a two year old gsd who was also a rescue dog, she is the happiest, best behaved and loyal dog you will find, there are no such things as bad dogs, only bad(or inexperienced) owners

pboae

Kaya, I fundamentally disagree with the idea of humans as alpha pack leaders, my views on it are fairly well known here. As the OP's problem is between dogs not between a dog and a human, I don't think it's particularly relevant so I don't want to derail this thread by taking it off on a tangent. If you want to start another thread on it, I am more than happy to discuss it (though I doubt it would last long, as it is not moneysaving, but you can try if you want).

In the situations you describe I am not particularly surprised that you've not seen many problems. (Although if you have truly never seen it then you've been lucky as well). The vast majority of dogs can be intergrated into an established and stable pack, even the forced/artifical pack of domestic animals. It's the early stages of creation which are most risky. Having said that there are huge numbers of people out there with b!tches living in harmony together. So it's certainly not guaranteed that b!tches will fight.

But it's not particularly rare either and the real issue is that when they do fight, it's usually serious and extremely difficult to sort out.

ameliarate

I am sorry to hear you are having these problems. We went through the same thing a few years ago with our two btchs. The older one SUDDENLY attacked the younger one and we have not been able to get them anywhere near each other safely since. It was heartbreaking knowing that one would have to be re-homed but luckily my MIL has taken one of them so we still get to see her and know she is well cared for. The younger one now has fear/agression problems and is liable to attack any other dog that comes in her vicinity (though not so much when with my partner as when she is with me).

Selfishly, I am pleased to hear that I am not the only one who has had this problem because for a long time I felt extremely guilty that I had not cared for my dogs properly and that had caused the problem.

I wish you luck and hope you can get it sorted out.

kaya

ill have to agree to disagree on that one