I also want to mention that each fight happened as soon as I turned my back on the dogs. Does this have any meaning? I can always catch any of my dogs before a fight starts (even if its just a raised lip) just by being in the room (which rarely happens, maybe once or twice in the past 6 years)
It's almost as if they are waiting for me to turn my back on them.

You can ask all kinds of questions and do all sorts of research, but, IMO, you have to separate those dogs NOW, and if that means in a crate 24/7, then that's the way it has to be. You have a 2-1/2 year-old son who is in danger and who, by the way, is in no way ready or able to be a pack leader, no matter how much you try or want him to be. You have to take the responsibility to protect your son, yourself, and your dogs and you have to do it now.

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You can ask all kinds of questions and do all sorts of research, but, IMO, you have to separate those dogs NOW, and if that means in a crate 24/7, then that's the way it has to be. You have a 2-1/2 year-old son who is in danger and who, by the way, is in no way ready or able to be a pack leader, no matter how much you try or want him to be. You have to take the responsibility to protect your son, yourself, and your dogs and you have to do it now.

DITTO! You can take them out separately for exercise and training.

Bad situation, and you're getting good feedback here.

Tina, you cannot allow these dogs to live all loose together (maybe Cesar Millan could make your situation work, but precious few people have his natural gifts!) -- Meanwhile the alpha bitch & her male partner may very well kill her daughter & could quite easily end up injuring your toddler son in the process <:-(

Please take everyone's well-meaning advice here & keep these dogs separated, before a real tragedy occurs on your watch...

Cesar Millan is a rare type. He is a natural born leader, confident, self assured, calm under stress, knowing exactly what to do and how to handle himself in every situation. Very few people can make that work. Doing something like this would require you to have thorough knowledge of dog behavior, canine body language, and leadership. To jump from where you are now to Cesar's level is too great a jump- your dogs have severe rank issues and being allowed on furniture and beds did not help this.

They must get separated today and work on the leadership issues separately. You need to get that under control for several months at least before you attempt to bring them back together. Because they're used to the fighting amongst each other, you will face a difficult time trying to break them of it and you may never get it to work.

One step at a time though, these dogs must get separated. All dogs must now lose all privileges they've given and basically must now live in a canine boot camp where they get nothing for free, they must work for everything, and they get nothing when they desire it, only at YOUR whim.

Edit: Also, do NOT allow your son to interact unsupervised with any of these dogs. It's precautionary, and as your son is very young and very small the rank issues could spill over onto him. Ensure your son never pets the dogs if they come to him demanding attention. As he's very young, you have to make these determinations for him, and as he'll never be unsupervised around the dogs (riiiight?), you can ensure the correct protocols are followed.

OK, I think I understand what everyone is saying....CRATE THE DOGS. Now if I don't have crates on hand for all 4 does keeping them gated in seperate rooms help?
And just so you all know, I bought the dominant aggressive DVD just now.

If you can be 100% certain they won't be egging each other on if they're line-of-sight with each other, getting pissed off to the point where they jump/bust through the gate. Dogs can break through some crates but it's easier for a dog to go through a gate.

Yes, keeping them securely APART will prevent them from being together -- When they are kept separate by whatever means available, then they will not be ABLE to fight with each other <:-)

Follow the advice in the article below, while waiting for your DVD to arrive & don't allow the dogs loose together, indoors or out...
http://www.leerburg.com/groundwork.htm

Good point on the gate thing, Diana. Mine need to be out of sight of each other when their in one of their tiffs. Otherwise they resort to staring/growling until someone makes a forward movement and all hell breaks loose.

RE: Cesar, keep in mind that there are probably things he does that we don't see, so don't beat yourself up if you can't do things like he does with total success.

As far as what you've said about them "correcting" each other, I have seen similar behavior with my VERY alpha male toward others. He will take it upon himself to correct any of the others if they disobey me, as you're describing. I remove him from the room before I correct another dog, b/c he is always wanting to step in. This is totally counterproductive b/c YOU are the alpha, and the correction needs to come from you. I am not a behaviorist and don't know why exactly they do this, but it's something I have only noticed with more than 2 dogs, so I think we're dealing with similar personalities here.

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OK, I think I understand what everyone is saying....CRATE THE DOGS. Now if I don't have crates on hand for all 4 does keeping them gated in seperate rooms help? ..... And just so you all know, I bought the dominant aggressive DVD just now.

Thumbs up, Tina. Sometimes people post here with a dangerous or otherwise bad situation, but go off in a huff when the answers aren't to their liking.

Separating the dogs is the very basic Step #1. They can't fight if they are separated.

You'll be doing good to follow Diana's links and read Ed's articles.