April 28, 2011
Is it common for a daughter of 18 months want to take over her dam's alpha position who is 4 yrs old?
Full Question:
Hi,I hope you had a wonderful holiday. Is it common for a daughter of 18 months want to take over her dam's alpha position who is 4 yrs old? I thought 18 months was kind of young... but the daughter is bigger, more strong willed, and I saw this coming months ago but I don't if I could have done anything about it.
How they started was I would run the 2 adults first, then the pups and the pups would sit stay and wait their turn. Well, when the daughter was about 12 months old, she started biting on her dam when I would try to let the adults out first to run. I could see her getting more aggressive each day, so I started kenneling the pups while I ran the adults and inside the house all 4 dogs were fine.
Until the daughter's 2nd heat this summer and they've never been able to be together since. My previous GSD's were also mother/daughter and the mother would NEVER let the daughter be alpha (she wasn't an alpha female anyway and only challenged her about once a year) even though she outweighed her dam by a good 15lbs - so this current situation is a new experience.
Tina
Ed's Answer:
18 months is about when we start seeing this kind of behavior in young dogs, although the more dominant the dog, the younger this behavior shows itself. My dogs that try to do this are quickly put in their place by me. I don’t allow my dogs to posture and try to assert themselves over each other in my presence and I don’t allow them to be alone together if I know there is a potential for this kind of behavior.
I can run all my dogs together when I am present, 4 dominant bitches and 2 males and they absolutely know that I won’t tolerate any of fighting or dominant behavior. This has taken many hours and lots of one on one time spent with each dog. You have to be an expert on reading dog signals in order for this to work safely.
We have a section on this newly released DVD on the signals dogs send each other, Pack Structure for the Family Pet. We also have a book that has a lot of good information called Canine Body Language.
This will escalate into fighting if you do not make it clear that this is not acceptable behavior.
I can run all my dogs together when I am present, 4 dominant bitches and 2 males and they absolutely know that I won’t tolerate any of fighting or dominant behavior. This has taken many hours and lots of one on one time spent with each dog. You have to be an expert on reading dog signals in order for this to work safely.
We have a section on this newly released DVD on the signals dogs send each other, Pack Structure for the Family Pet. We also have a book that has a lot of good information called Canine Body Language.
This will escalate into fighting if you do not make it clear that this is not acceptable behavior.
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