I am hoping you can give me some advice about how to handle the fact that one of our dogs has decided to take over as pack leader over our older dog who has always been the pack leader up till recently.

Hi,

I am hoping you can give me some advice about how to handle the fact that one of our dogs has decided to take over as pack leader over our older dog who has always been the pack leader up till recently.

I have two dogs a foxy/jack russell that is around 12-15 years. He is a desexed male. We have owned him for about 9 years. About 5 years ago we were given a female (not desexed) poodle puppy. They have got on well all these years and the male has been the dominant dog of the two. Lately the male is getting older and slowing down. He is getting a bit hard of hearing and though he has lots of energy chasing a tennis ball he sleeps a lot of the day. The female has started trying to assert herself as the dominant dog. Lately she has started attacking the older male dog. Sometimes this has been over food (eg, if he finds some scraps under the table) or over him being given attention by us. Tonight she growled at him while he was just across the room standing doing nothing. Within seconds she attacked him. She has now attacked him several times resulting in him being hurt, though not seriously, enough to draw blood on small wounds a couple of times and for him to have a sore leg a few times. He has become scared of her and has started to act submissively towards her. If they are face to face at the door and she is inside and he is outside and she growls at him he will back away. She has also growled at him because he was in her basket. That time I quickly picked her up and put her outside before anything further happened. I wouldn't worry if she accepted this submissiveness but she is starting to attack him regardless of his submissiveness. I think on one occasion she growled at him and then he attacked her so that time he got in first. So it seems he is scared of her but not entirely sure he wants to give up his top dog role just yet but generally it is her attacking him.

It seems to me that she senses he is getting old and she wants to become pack leader. I have been trying to help him remain as the leader by ensuring he gets fed before her and she cannot eat till he is finished, etc.

When she has attacked him I have immediately put her outside the house but let him remain inside. I am beginning to wonder now if trying to help him retain the pack leader role is the wrong approach and that I should just let her be the pack leader. Perhaps this will make her feel more secure in this role and she will be less likely to need to assert herself over him with an attack and that a growl will suffice.

I need to 'nip' this behaviour in the bud (pardon the pun) before it escalates. Most of the time they get on perfectly well but the occasional fights are starting to become more frequent.

Do you think I should start feeding her first and let her be the pack leader as she presumably wants to be and this would be best for both?

She has not deliberately hurt any of us in the family or tried to dominate us in any way at all (I have a husband and 3 sons aged 18, 14 and 7) but as there have been several fights over recent months we have had to separate them (and on one occasion my husband got a small bite from her though she wasn't trying to bite him he just put his hand too close as he tried to grab their collars). My teenage boys (unlike my husband who tried to grab their collars) have instinctively grabbed the female dog's back feet to drag her off and that has worked (as has throwing water on them). I have told my 7 year old to get out of the room if they fight and not go anywhere near them. I have told my teenagers if I or my husband are not around then they are not go anywhere near their collars if they fight that is is better the dogs get hurt than the humans and to use the broom or umbrella initially and throw a container of water on them and, if that doesn't work, to drag their back feet up (with two people one for each dog) and circle them around (from your website) so we will do this in future.

We are going on holidays for a week in a few weeks time and were planning to have them minded by a dog minder who has a dog of her own (a 2 year old female labrador). We took them to the minder's house to meet the other dog and although the labrador got very excited and frantically jumped all over our dogs all went well with the labrador and our older dog but our female started to get a bit cranky after much jumping on by the labrador and did snap at the labrador's mussel for a few seconds. This is the first time she has ever snapped at another dog. She didn't attack just gave a nip on the mussel to tell the labrador to leave her alone. She gets on very well with all the other dogs in the dog park. The labrador got the message and left her alone but we separated them anyway. After she attacked our dog tonight for no apparent reason (perhaps because he was in front of the heater but she is not normally jealous of that as she gets quite hot and doesn't usually sit in front of the heater herself) I am beginning to think that perhaps we shouldn't leave our dog at the minders in case our female snaps at the labrador. We might need to leave them at our place instead and have the minder come in to feed and walk them without her labrador being present.

I would be grateful for any advice and thoughts.

Thanks,
Anne