April 26, 2011
My 2 females have started fighting. I am afraid for my children and my baby on the way. What can I do?
Full Question:
I stumbled upon your website while trying to learn more about dog on dog aggression. I have found it very informative and helpful. However, I am still at a loss as to what to do with my specific situation. I have one male 10 month old, one female 14 months old, and one female 18 months old. We have just had to move to a new house due to hurricane Katrina, which I am sure adds stress to the dogs. It is my two females that I am having problems with. The 18 month old is a chow mix who went through an obedience class when she was about 3 months old. It has been a while and I am sure she needs a refresher course. The 14 month old is a pit bull who I believe is trying to show dominance. Prior to this, the chow has been the leader of the pack. Now, the pit bull is trying to challenge that. The problem is that my nine year old daughter has already been bit while trying to break up a fight. Tonight when they started fighting, they really got a hold of each other. Surprisingly, it has been the pit bull that gets hurt the most, with tonight being the worst yet. This whole situation has really only escalated in about the past week. With everyone being closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, I am just trying to keep them separated until Monday when I can hopefully get some answers. They are both so much a part of our family that I am willing to try anything before giving one of them away. I know that training and behavior modification are obviously what needs to come first. I just don't really know where to start or who to turn to. Do I bring them both together, or separately? Will they ever be able to live peacefully together again now that it has gotten to this point? One other concern that I have is I am having a baby in May. I am scared for the safety of the baby and my other two children.If you could point me in the right direction, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jessica
Ed's Answer:
This is more of a lack of education problem than a dog problem. Your problems are a result of the way you chose to live with your dog.
Your own a dog pack and you don’t understand pack structure and pack rules.
Here is some reading material:
I recommend that you go to my web site and read the article I wrote on My Philosophy of Dog Training. I think you will get some good ideas there.
I have a saying that I like to tell people. It goes like this ” Everyone has an opinion on how to train a dog – just ask you barber, your mailman and your neighbor”
The problem is very few people have the experience to back up their opinions. This results in a lot of bad information being passed out on how to deal with behavioral problems.
Pet owners like yourself need to figure out who has the experience to warrant listening to. Dog training for me is not a hobby. It’s a way of life. I have been training dogs for over 40 years. I have bred over 350 litters of working bloodline German Shepherds, I was a police K9 handler on a drug task force for 10 years and I have produced over 100 videos on dog training. Many of them directed towards professional dog trainers.
My web site is over 5,000 pages. It has over 300 training article and the web board has over 90,000 posts with 7500 or more members. I don’t have time to answer a lot of personal emails but with this said I will almost guarantee you that your problems have been answered someplace on my web site. It’s the largest dog training web site on the Internet.
Read the article I wrote titled Dealing with a Dominant Dog.
I recommend that you visit my web site and read a training article I recently wrote titled THE THEORY OF CORRECTIONS IN DOG TRAINING.
The reason I wrote this article was to help people understand how to motivate their dogs in training. Most people either use the wrong kind of correction or over correct dogs in training. I am not a fan of “force training” (although I most defiantly believe that every dog needs to go through a correction phase). By exploring corrections in training you will become a better dog trainer.
Bottom line is you need to change the way you live with your dogs. Get three dog crates and use them. TRAINING them – here is the DVD to teach you the correct way (Basic Dog Obedience) Use prong collars or electric collars in your training . I can tell you if these were my dogs I would run them through my obedience program and my groundwork program
You may want to read the article I wrote titled The Ground Work to Becoming a Pack Leader. This is the protocol we use in our home when we raise a puppy for ourselves. It is also the part of the protocol we use to solving behavioral problems such as dominance and/or house breaking problems.
I would also be using remote trainers - this DVD teaches you how to do this correctly. (Electric Collar Training For Pet Owners)
Your own a dog pack and you don’t understand pack structure and pack rules.
Here is some reading material:
I recommend that you go to my web site and read the article I wrote on My Philosophy of Dog Training. I think you will get some good ideas there.
I have a saying that I like to tell people. It goes like this ” Everyone has an opinion on how to train a dog – just ask you barber, your mailman and your neighbor”
The problem is very few people have the experience to back up their opinions. This results in a lot of bad information being passed out on how to deal with behavioral problems.
Pet owners like yourself need to figure out who has the experience to warrant listening to. Dog training for me is not a hobby. It’s a way of life. I have been training dogs for over 40 years. I have bred over 350 litters of working bloodline German Shepherds, I was a police K9 handler on a drug task force for 10 years and I have produced over 100 videos on dog training. Many of them directed towards professional dog trainers.
My web site is over 5,000 pages. It has over 300 training article and the web board has over 90,000 posts with 7500 or more members. I don’t have time to answer a lot of personal emails but with this said I will almost guarantee you that your problems have been answered someplace on my web site. It’s the largest dog training web site on the Internet.
Read the article I wrote titled Dealing with a Dominant Dog.
I recommend that you visit my web site and read a training article I recently wrote titled THE THEORY OF CORRECTIONS IN DOG TRAINING.
The reason I wrote this article was to help people understand how to motivate their dogs in training. Most people either use the wrong kind of correction or over correct dogs in training. I am not a fan of “force training” (although I most defiantly believe that every dog needs to go through a correction phase). By exploring corrections in training you will become a better dog trainer.
Bottom line is you need to change the way you live with your dogs. Get three dog crates and use them. TRAINING them – here is the DVD to teach you the correct way (Basic Dog Obedience) Use prong collars or electric collars in your training . I can tell you if these were my dogs I would run them through my obedience program and my groundwork program
You may want to read the article I wrote titled The Ground Work to Becoming a Pack Leader. This is the protocol we use in our home when we raise a puppy for ourselves. It is also the part of the protocol we use to solving behavioral problems such as dominance and/or house breaking problems.
I would also be using remote trainers - this DVD teaches you how to do this correctly. (Electric Collar Training For Pet Owners)
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