Help! My dogs got in a bad fight and the vet suggested putting one of them to sleep. What should we do?

Question

Hello,

    We have, currently, 5 pit bulls in our household: 3 male and 2 female. 1 of the females is fixed, the other is the mother to the 3 males. All are pure bred. We've always had a little aggression with the males (the are just 6 months now, the last three out of a litter of 8) but n0othing major until recently. When preparing two of the puppies for their walks, Cocoa, the largest of the males, charged from the back porch and attacked his brother violently. We had a hard time even prying him off. They both calmed down, and the walk was uneventful. After the walk, they were both getting a drink and Boo (the second largest of the boys) was across the room from Cocoa, back turned as he was returning to his kennel. Cocoa charged across the room and attacked him again. It took 3 adults to break up the fight, and resulted in a trip to the emergency vet for boo due to a heavily bleeding gash on his leg, bite marks on the leg, foot and neck. Cocoa received a cut on his ear in the fight. Neither attack was provoked, nor was there any forewarning that the attacks were going to happen. While breaking up the fight, Boo settled immediatly when they were seperated, Cocoa took a nip at me but didn't cause any real damage. Currently the dogs are seperated, but Cocoa will growl and snarl when he sees the other dogs..not all the time though, sometimes he wags his tail and is the freindly, loving Cocoa we've always known. It's as if he has some hair trigger and suddenly lunges and tries to attack the other dogs (male or female) without warning, and then will be fine again seeing the same dog not 5 minutes later.

    On the visit to the emergency vets, we explained what had happened, and that we have a petite 7 year neice also living in the house. The vet recommended we consider having Cocoa put down, or we place him in a household with no other pets or children and are well aware that we can held liable for any damage he causes, since we are aware of the hair triggered temper. My sister is even concerned with placing him with anyone smaller in stature or lightweight, since the puppies are already 50lbs+ @ 6 months of age.

    The vet was very kind, and tried to be comforting. I need some honest advice, though, and to know if this dog should be put down or if there's some of rememdy that we're not aware off. We do not want any other dogs, or any person hurt.

    Thank you,
Fred

Accepted Answer

You’ve got a dog pack on your hands, and you need to get a handle on managing them or things will only get worse.

If you spend some time reading this section, you’ll see that your problems are very common. I’ve received 6 or 7 emails just today from dog owners with very similar problems. If you don’t teach the dogs your rules, they can’t possibly behave how you want them to.

I’d start with our Groundwork program for every single dog in your house and the video that picks up where the article leaves off. Pack Structure for the Family Pet.

I believe that this DVD could really help you. It’s titled DEALING WITH DOMINANT AND AGGRESSIVE DOGS and was a 5 year project.

The problems you are seeing are the result of the way you live with your dogs. When dogs act like this they lack leadership from their owners. In other words their owners don’t understand how important pack drive is in how they raise their dogs.

Owners of dogs like yours underestimate the genetic power of "PACK DRIVE." Pack structure is not something new and it is not optional, and if you don’t provide the structure and leadership a dog NEEDS then he or she will behave as canines have for thousands of years and will structure your family and household their own way. Your dog is not behaving badly out of spite or stubbornness; your dog is simply being a dog, a dog that needs some guidance and rules.

I personally can’t handle a group of 5 dogs that are allowed to behave as they wish, so I doubt the average pet owner can do so. It may be a good idea to rehome one or more of the dogs but that still doesn’t mean you don’t need to work with all of them. Merely separating them and not offering any leadership will do nothing to remedy this situation.

I would direct you to the search function in the upper left corner of the website for any additional questions you may have. If you type in your key words it will guide you to articles, Q & A’s and posts on our forum.

Cindy