I have an 8 year old spayed female pit bull mill who is a bit dog aggressive, my fault, not properly socialized. We lost our 12 year old male to cancer one year ago and in Oct. adopted a pit bull, american bull dog mix from the shelter who is a great dog. We slowly introduced the female to the puppy and long story short, they love each other, play well and I have never had a problem..until now. I started taking the male to doggie day care twice a week to get him socialized, he loves it and behaves very well. However, when I bring him home my female gets her hackles up, and stalks him. This escalated on Wednesday to her growling and lunging at him, (no biting) and this behavior continued for about an hour. The male was very confused and a bit scared. He avoided her most of the night and she kind of glared at him. Thursday morning when they got up, no problems, fine as wine, love each other again. Why is she doing this? I don't understand her behavior or what the problem is so I don't know how to correct it. Can anyone give me any insight? Thanks for any help.

It sounds like the dog aggressive dog doesn't like her pack mate socializing with other dogs.

I’m sure you will get more advice, but I’d suggest that you personally train the male to be “neutral” to other dogs. Take him to places where he can see the other dogs, but do not allow him to play with the other dogs. Ed talks about that on one of the DVDs; either the puppy DVD or the Basic OB DVD. He wants his working dogs to basically ignore other dogs. He does not allow his dogs to “play” with other dogs.

I think this will work for you because you can make the male less aggressive to other dogs and also not irritate the dog aggressive female.

Read E-Book #18

http://leerburg.com/dogtrainingebooks.htm

I think this approach will be much easier that re-training the older female. But you may want to try and work with her to make her more "dog neutral".

Good luck

Read #3 and #14 also. Don't let your dogs settle the disagreements themselves.

When you remove a dog from a group for any length of time you are changing the group dynamics and you can see aggression or posturing particularily in dogs that have any dog aggression (or are dominant) when you re-introduce.
You might want to consider crating both dogs when they have been separate for a while before re-introducing them.

Thanks very much for all your input. I don't leave my dogs together unsupervised, that's one of the reasons I take the male to day care. The female has the run of the house, the male (now one year old) is kenneled all day. I understand the group dynamics and smells that set off the female, makes perfect sense. Thank you for that. My dogs are not working dogs however, and while I respect and admire the working dogs, and nothing is more spectacular than watching them work, it really warms my heart to watch my male in his play group (4 other dogs) having so much fun and exhibiting such joyful abandon. Not quite sure why that would be a bad thing, dogs are pack animals and enjoy being with other dogs. I will make sure that I "block" my female from her behavior when I bring the male home now. Like I said, the next day they are fine, it just happens when I bring him home from day care.

I have a male pitbull who is a year and six months, and my girlfriend has a female-pit mix (2 years). I also have a belgian malinois puppy. The two pits are together alot, but the puppy is never around the other two dogs. Anyways, long story short, if I take the pitbull male out fishing, when i get home, all of the dogs get their hackles up and as we walk to the gate, look very concerned about eachother. I usually wait to enter the gate untill they are all wagging tales and relaxed. I don't know why they do this, its not scent because I don't let my dogs play with anybody elses. I figure its just instinct kicking in when they don't immiediatly recognize eachother.

As far as dogs being pack animals and wanting to play with other dogs, I understand that if a wolf strays into another packs territory, the pack will often times kill the stranger. Food for thought on that one.

Millie,

Yes, dogs are pack animals and do enjoy playing with other dogs. The problem is that the dogs at the day care are not part of your dogs pack. Right now your dog is a puppy and just wants to play, but soon as your dog starts to mature the dynamics of the pack will change and all it takes is one attack and you can end up with a dog aggressive dog. It is much eaiser to train your dog to be neutral to other dogs then to have to deal with a dog aggressive dog.