Had a really stressful day with dogs suddenly fighting

[hgodwinjr1968]

Warning: I am sorry this is so long but I'm still terrified and horrified about what happened today so I'm just going to write it all out and try to edit it at the end.

I have a 3yoM fixed Pit Bull / Corgi mix (B), and a 9moM unfixed Pit Bull / Chi mix (K). They are both rescues. I was trying to wait until 1Y to fix K, not to breed him but for development.

B is a very gentle 45lb shortlegged dog, who looks like a corgi with a pit bull head. He helped raise K from a 6 week old puppy and was the best big brother ever. They have gotten along really well in general, until today.

Two weeks ago another dog jumped on B, and beat him up pretty badly despite being 1/3 his size. Everybody thought the little dog would get slaughtered but it was B who ended up injured and shaking afterwards. Despite his looks and his size, he just won't fight in a way that causes injuries to other dogs. I think this has some bearing on today.

K has now grown up, he is 50 lbs, long legged, and has a build similar to a Dalmation. They haven't really ever displayed any aggression towards each other over resources. There are plenty of other toys everywhere and they love to play tug of war together.

We don't go out for walks much because there are tons of loose dogs/feral cats in my neighborhood. There is a dog door and a medium sized fenced yard for them to run around in, and we go visit my best friend and his dog BD (9yo M, fixed) pretty often and they can run around in that yard. I take them to special outings once or twice a month where they get to run around and swim in a park.

They are both pretty good on basic commands like recall, sit, etc., and the only real Reactive behavior I wish would stop is that they bark excessively at cars or people going by the house.

The past several weeks, K has been demonstrating annoying teenaged behaviors. He runs around and harries B for a bit when I put the food down, and he kind of guards me from him. We used to all lay on the bed together at night but lately K will chase B down off the bed. I know this is my fault, that I allowed this kind of bullying behavior from K.

The issue today: my best friend went out of town and left his dog BD (9yoM, fixed) with us to watch for a month. BD has stayed with us before when K was just a wee bitty thing. But I think having BD here now has shaken up the pack hierarchy. BD has assumed K's former positions everywhere, laying up by my pillows, right next to me on the sofa, etc. I think this threw K for a loop and he started bullying B, to establish himself as higher than B in the pack order.

Today I gave them all a treat and waited in the room until they were all done, and then I walked away. As soon as I left the room I heard a fight break out. I found B and K going at it, that whole snarly twisty neck biting thing, with BD running around the outside, occasionally jumping in to bite at K. On my personal Dog Fight Scale I would probably rate this one a 4: it started as a correction but then got out of hand. Eventually I managed to pick K up by the hind legs and throw him in a bedroom and close the door. There was nothing I found that they could have been fighting about.

I spent about an hour checking out the dogs, cleaning up blood from B's nose, and giving them a chance to chill out. Other than the bleeding nose cut nobody seemed very injured. After an hour, I let K back out of the bedroom thinking an hour of Time Out was enough but it was not: he immediately bowed up and jumped on B again and this time it was BAD.

The second fight was the longest 3 minutes of my life. This was way more serious than the first fight. K kept pinning B to the ground and offering him the chance to give in, but he wouldn't, and then it would ratchet up a notch. Blood was flying everywhere. I eventually got them separated again with a door between them and assessed the injuries. B got the worst of it, because he refuses to attack to really hurt anybody. I was bitten accidentally while trying to close the door to separate them, but it's not serious and wasn't intentional. There was no other way to close the damn door with both my hands occupied trying to keep them apart. It was the worst dog fight I've ever personally witnessed, and I was alone trying to stop it.

I don't feel comfortable having them in the same room again. I'm a single girl and there's nobody else here to handle the second dog if I tried reintroducing them.

I immediately contacted a dog trainer and the first available time I can meet with him is next Tuesday, which seems an awful long time away. It's expensive but I feel like I have to at least give the dogs a chance than just jumping to E., or rehoming one of them.

I ordered muzzles for both dogs, slip leads, and training treats. K will be crated 24/7 except for when I let him out (leashed), feed him (leashed), anything at all, he'll be leashed, except for some solo exercise time in the yard. B and BD are fine together and were fine together immediately after the fights so they're with me in whatever room I'm in. I tried keeping them separated too just in case but B keeps getting up out of his spot to go lay near BD, which I suppose is good news for their friendship. My best friend is willing to come home from vacation to get his dog but I'm hoping that BD will be fine staying out the month here.

When I walk K, I put BD and B in crates in the living room, and then go get K from his crate in my room. I have to walk right by them with him on a leash. K is still acting snarly and trying to lunge at B from his leash, hours after the fight has ended. B, for his sake, seems to not be provoking this at all but growls at K if he lunges too close to the crate. While outside during his freedom run in the yard, K is wandering around howl/whining like he doesn't know what's going on and is scared.

With the trainer's advice, until he can get here, I'm trying to approach this from the perspective that from now on, I am the Leader of this household, and nothing happens except for what I say. Everyone eats, drinks, poops, and sleeps where and when I tell them. Period.

My questions:

Should I send my best friend's dog BD elsewhere? Or is he perhaps providing a positive influence for B?

Has anybody ever had a dog permanently psychologically damaged and turned more reactive by this kind of thing? I am worried about B's state of mind. How can I help support him and get him to relax again? His vibe is so ... squirrely. Getting jumped two weeks ago by a new dog was bad enough, but now I'm worried he won't feel safe in his own home ever again.

Should I just crate all three dogs even though B and BD are fine being out together? Does that in any way help even the playing field so to speak and establish me better as a leader?

Would moving K's crate into the living room nearer the other two crates help in any way to desensitize them again? How long will it take before they all calm down from this? How can I help?

Will neutering help K's behavior? Is this hormones, or just all my fault for not offering the right leadership?

Once I get the muzzles, can I let them hang out in the same room together again? Can they still fight and do each other any kind of damage with muzzles on? How does one introduce muzzles into a household successfully? I've never used them before.

It's been hours and my heart is still beating fast with my chest all clenched up, like I'm in a panic attack that just won't stop. Does anybody have any advice for me, other than what I'm already doing? Thanks so much for reading all of this.

 

[dr650adv]

@hgodwinjr1968 I apologize for not reading this entire post, but wanted to point out that it takes weeks for a dog’s stress hormones to dissipate after a stressful or traumatic experienced. Adding another dog to the equation after a fight is a lot it ask. It changes the dynamics. Especially with high value things around them.

The second fight happened in the context of both dogs being in a high stress state from the first fight.

The rescue didn’t have the puppy neutered before you adopted him?

 

[hgodwinjr1968]

@dr650adv I didn't realize that it would take that long for B to recover from the initial event. I feel terrible now. He and BD are strong friends, so I suppose I thought that B would enjoy having the company, and for someone else to take the brunt of the puppy's play drive for a while.

I didn't get puppy K from a rescue. I rescued him from a gas station parking lot by a dumpster. He was 6 weeks old and I couldn't just leave him there. They are both fully vetted and vaccinated and I was planning to get K neutered around 1 year old, to allow for his bones and ligaments and tendons to develop best. Obviously now I'm re-thinking that.

 

[bragar]

@hgodwinjr1968 There are a lot of possibilities here. Adding a visiting dog can certainly change up the social order in the house. Dominance theory has been debunked, but every social species from chickens to goats to dogs to humans have some concept of social hierarchy. More social difficulties between housemates following adding or subtracting a dog from the household is a known issue. But it may or may not be a factor in your current issue.

I like your plan for management until you can see a trainer. It's not about exerting dominance so much as controlling the situation as much as possible while limiting the choices the dogs can make. Dogs who have made poor choices need to have their options limited.

Your adolescent male is pushing boundaries like all adolescents push boundaries, whether they have intact sex organs or not. Neutering would be unlikely to prevent this and is unlikely to fix it. Your teenage dog may have decided that he doesn't need to accept corrections from your older dog anymore, and your older dog may have decided that he cannot accept this.

It is possible that your younger dog is developing same sex aggression or dog aggression, which can begin with a specific target or gradually develop as a pattern of reduced tolerance. It may be something that was naturally developing, and it may not be something you can fix. Clearly the fight triggered it, but it's possible the big fight was going to happen eventually no matter what you did. It is possible that your younger dog will mature into a dog that cannot live with other dogs. You may need to crate and rotate for the rest of their lives.

 

[hgodwinjr1968]

@bragar I’m aware that dominance theory has been debunked. I haven’t mentioned dominance anywhere; I’ve talked about leadership, which to me is a difference concept. I need to be a good leader for the household, allowing and rewarding good behavior, and ignoring and discouraging bad behavior by limiting those options and preventing those circumstances from being able to occur.

As far as the puppy goes, he is still being reactive to the other dogs when I walk him leashed through the room to go outside to potty and play. He’s still being his same sweet self to me, though. And while we were outside this morning, the yard guy showed up, which caused him to go off and get all lungey and snarly again.

He used to be such a sweet dog to everyone, only wanting kisses and cuddles and affection. I don’t know what happened, if the fights just broke him or whether this was latent the whole time. If the trainer cannot help I fear I’ll have to rehome him as an only dog somewhere.

This morning when i woke up B was laying beside me just quivering and doing this strange teeth chattering thing. I think he’s just terrified. I was able to calm him somewhat with some pets and love, but… This whole situation just sucks.

 

[bragar]

@hgodwinjr1968 Some people try to mask their belief in dominance theory by couching it in terms of leadership rather than the traditional alpha, but it sounds like you have a good plan for what to do.

The fights could not have broken your dog. Lots of dogs get into lots of fights every day, with much more severe consequences, in much less supportive environments, without it permanently altering their temperaments. The vast majority of a dog's temperament is genetic. This was latent and the fight brought it out.

This was the best way I have seen it explained: Imagine a dog's temperament on a scale of 1-10, 1 being a basket case and 10 a bombproof service dog temperament. A guide dog puppy in a purpose bred program bred for generations for temperament has a potential range of 8-10. With the best environment and puppyhood, that puppy can attain a 10 and be absolutely bombproof in all situations. But, even with the worse puppyhood of abuse and neglect, that dog is never going to be worse than an 8 and there's a lot of potential to raise that number with damage control training.

My worst reactive dog was born with a potential range more like 3-5. There was absolutely nothing I could have done to raise her temperament above a 5. No amount of puppy raising, training, or socialization was going to turn her into a bombproof dog capable of taking on the world. I wondered for years what I had done wrong to make her so anxious about life. But the only thing I did wrong was believe I could socialize and train out her genetics. She was out of a nervous mother with a horribly stressful pregnancy. She was hardwired to be afraid of the world before she was even born.

 

[hgodwinjr1968]

@bragar That was one of the questions I grilled the trainer on, regarding his methods, whether he believed in the whole Alpha thing and punishment verses positive rewards and training methods, before I agreed to work with him.

I do believe that as the human it’s my job to be the pack leader, where I provide the resources and structure and make sure everybody is safe and has their needs met and understands the rules of the house.

And I believe that in the absence of good leadership, the dogs will try to sort out those roles for themselves: someone will take on Resource Management and try to designate when and who can access resources like food and water and toys, or someone will take on Area Protection and be on high alert all the time to let everybody know there’s a strange animal or person nearby, etc.

If I can positively show that I’m in control of these things, theoretically, no dog will feel like they need to assign themselves that task. They’ll be able to relax and play and trust that the world is fine with me in charge. And if I am paying close enough attention I should be able to disarm any potential disagreements before they start.

I believe these things to be true, yet somehow I’ve failed in implementing them. My dogs no longer feel safe here like I can protect them from each other. This is crippling to me, I feel so horrible about it all.

 

[bragar]

@hgodwinjr1968 There is no amount of leadership in the world that can prevent innate genetic traits from expressing. Those are not born out of any lack of confidence. Leadership cannot prevent a mastiff from deciding it's time to guard the house. Leadership cannot prevent a border collie from deciding it's time to move the cows. Leadership cannot keep a Labrador out of the swimming pool. And leadership cannot prevent a terrier from deciding that it is time to brawl.

You can see this as your dogs being so tragically unstable that one fight traumatized them to the point of no return. Or you can see them as terriers doing what terriers do, at the time terriers typically do it.

 

[james022]

@hgodwinjr1968 We recently had a similar situation with our 7 month old and 3 year old miniature schnauzers. I know people will disagree with this but in our circumstance it resolved itself with a few training sessions and neutering the younger one.

For context - they were fighting over a toy and the 7 month old grabbed onto the other dog and I had to physically remove him, but it was basically just a tiny scratch so it wasn’t a serious fight. I didn’t want it to happen again so we lived in a gated community for a while and sought help from a trainer. We also decided to have the 7 month old neutered.

We are 4 weeks post neuter and he has calmed down so much. He no longer goes from 1-100 when something annoys him and will show he’s upset or annoyed but at a very small level and let it go. Both dogs are a lot more settled. I think of it like my 14 year old son. He has testosterone raging through his body and while he isn’t violent, he is much quicker to get angry and lash out at people right now.

I would suggest finding a way to divide your house so that each dog has a part and seek a trainer. But keep them separated. The more they fight and the more serious they are, the less likely it becomes they can learn to get along.

If it makes you feel better, my trainer stressed to us how common fights are between dogs in a household. It’s learning to manage or remove triggers and desensitizing them to things. We’ve seen a lot of success with it.

 

[hgodwinjr1968]

@james022 Thanks for your response! I’m glad your pups are getting along now.

My guys are still separated, and the guest dog is going home tomorrow, to let the household get back to normal. A trainer is coming Tuesday to begin working with both my guys. I’m also going to call Tuesday and get the neutering process started for the 9 month old.

This has been quite a ride. I’m glad everybody is okay, but I was so scared for a few days!

 

[amerikanka]

@hgodwinjr1968 There’s a lot going on here:

1. Did you tell your friend what happened? If not, you need to. It’s his decision on whether he feels comfortable with BD continuing to stay with you.
2. The ‘leader of the pack’ thing sounds like Alpha and dominance training. It’s dated and has been proven that it does’t work. I’d strongly reconsider this style if training.
3. How often is K in the crate now? You said 24/7 other than when you let him out to eat or have solo time outside. If K is spending a significant portion of the day in his crate it’s going to cause more problems and isn’t a humane way to treat a puppy. K needs to stay separated but keeping him in the crate all day and night isn’t an appropriate solution.
4. K needs be be neutered sooner rather than later

 

[hgodwinjr1968]

@amerikanka Yes, my friend knows what happened. He’s on vacation and said he’d book a flight home or make other arrangements for his dog if I tell him to. It would just be massively inconvenient and I feel so awful about all of it. He thinks that I’m probably overreacting a bit and that if I just keep the dogs separated for a few days they’ll be fine. I don’t think he really understands how serious the fight was, and that it’s still very much a dangerous situation. Even now when I walk K past B in his crate, he’s lunging and barking and trying to get at him to continue the fight. And B is acting depressed and very off.

I don’t subscribe to the whole Alpha/dominant thing, and neither does the trainer I spoke to. What he did say and what I agree with is that in any pack there is a pack leader who decides what’s happening, what the threats are, and makes the pack members feel safe and like they don’t need to stress by making certain decisions for themselves. If I am not providing strong leadership and making my dogs feel like I’ll handle situations as they arise, the dogs will try to fill that role themselves which can lead to unwanted behaviors. One example might be if I took them for a walk while my attention was on my phone and not our surroundings. A dog might feel like his job in that instance is to alert to other people or dogs in the area and try to protect us from them. If however I’m being a strong leader I’d be paying attention and letting them know that I see the other person and their dog first, and that there’s no threat there, before they become concerned about it. It involves building trust so my dogs no longer worry that they have to do the things that I’m not doing in order for the pack to function smoothly. By letting K bully B, letting him take the top dog spot, and then by introducing this other dog who took over K’s place in the pack hierarchy, I made K feel like his place and standing in our community was first accepted and then taken away, which caused him to feel like he had to fight B in order to get it back. At least that’s the way I loosely understand it. The trainer wants to work on showing me how to be a more effective leader so all the dogs know I’m in charge, they’re safe, and I don’t need any of them to take on the role of who needs to be alert for threats outdoors, or who decides when the other dogs can eat, or where they sleep.

I imagine pretty much everything about the way I interact with my dogs is about to change. No more lax parenting, I’m going to have to put in a lot of work if I want this to work.

K has been in the crate since the fight occurred, at first just to calm him down and keep him safe, and so I could attend to B’s injuries and clean up the house. I’ve been taking him out on his leash and letting him eat, drink, etc. while leashed to me, in the safety of my bedroom. I also walk him through the house on his leash until we get outside. Then I make him sit, unleash him, and let him run around the yard and potty, sniff, etc. for about fifteen minutes, every couple of hours. I bring him back to the bedroom and spend time with him in there, leashed to me, before putting him back in the crate. Having him in the crate like this isn’t ideal but it’s kind of like a reset over the next couple of days. Once the trainer gets here and shows me, I’ll learn how to reorganize things and redo my routines. It’s the only way I know of to keep him safe while reinforcing the idea that he is now dependent upon me to make the decisions for him and that he can’t just run around like a spaz doing what he wants and bullying the other dogs. He’s been doing a lot of sleeping and recharging, but he is still not calm. He’s still on high alert and if he could get to B I feel like the fight would immediately resume.

As soon as vets open Tuesday after the holiday I’m going to schedule his neutering appointment. At least right now while I’m being forced to keep him isolated and quiet, he’ll have a chance to heal without tearing his stitches open.

This whole episode has been devastating and super stressful. I still feel like I’m having an ongoing panic attack and that is no doubt not helping anybody. Hopefully today I’ll be calmer and more self assured which will help all of them as well.