Hello everyone,

I was hoping to come here just to get info on training my dog but a problem came up in the meantime.

A little background:
I have a 7 year old mixed breed female that weighs about 105 lbs. We think she is a shepherd husky mix but we're not sure. Until recently she shared her yard with a 14 year old Pomeranian and they got along fine. She has steady nerves and we have NEVER had her show to humans any aggression or dominance displays. I clicker trained her to walk calmly and slightly behind me on a lead and to reliably sit and lie down. Due to an injury (unrelated to the dog) I sustained I was not able to further train her. Recently our household combined with another and now have a pack of five dogs. I should have known to pay attention better but with the chaos of the move I neglected the issue. We introduced all the dogs to the new yard/house on the same day at the same time hoping they would all understand they were sharing territory. We did this at the advice of a behaviorist. The introductions were all done with individual dogs on leads. It went beautifully. The other three dogs are all all of unknown breed. One is a mammoth puppy that is larger than my big girl, the other two are medium-smallish mutts. One of the medium dogs was taken in after being a stray. She was also hit by a car and had one of her hind legs and her tail amputated about three years ago. She and my dog are the only females.

About a week after we arrived we were sitting outside while the dogs were going out. They got themselves into a tangle near the door and my large female dog started to attack the smaller one. She stopped immediately when called and the other dog had no injuries. She was just drenched in dog saliva. After the drama died down the dogs were fine again. The only thing we could figure is that I had noticed a small bump on the corner of my dog's eye earlier that day that looked like a blood blister. After we got the dogs apart it appeared this blister had popped. We thought maybe it popped and the large female thought the smaller female caused the pain and attacked her. I should also say the smaller dog is the most submissive dog I have ever seen in my life. She has gotten better because she used to pee when you made the slightest eye contact. Now, two months later, we have had another incident in which the larger female attacked the smaller one but this time she scratched one of her legs up pretty good. Nothing deep or serious looking, but the younger dog is traumatized and wouldn't eat for a day. I know we need to do something and I'm about to start training the larger dog again. I cannot imagine the younger dog doing anything to provoke the attack but no one saw what happened. Any advice on how to handle this situation? Also, should I redo groundwork before moving to obedience?

Thanks,
Mirika

Mirika,
The first thing that needs to happen is that you can not leave those dogs unattended around each other. You have to be in charge of the situation. They should not be out together unless you can be right on top of them. You can not have a situation with these dogs where "no one saw what happened". The larger dog should be attached to leash/prong collar that is attached to you. This way if anything starts to get out of hand you can stop it immediately with a forceful correction. It may be a situation where you can never trust the dogs around each other. If that is the case then do not allow them out with each other. Five dogs is a lot to deal with. Read and learn as much as possible about pack behavior on this web site.
--Steve

separation is the key.
dont allow them to be together unattended ever.

like steve said..read a lot and learn a lot..this site will help u lots.

hope it goes well for u!