I know im going to get eaten alive for this but I had my 2 dogs in a large enclosed field playing with a group of dogs they have played with numerous times before, unsupervised. My friend heard a dog screaming and went out to find my 2 dogs on top of the screaming dog, she yelled and they ran off. The dog had a couple bites/scratches on his ear that bled. This dog is highly food agressive and has bitten a person over food, so my only guess is there was somehow food or a bone or something that he snapped at one of my dogs and my dog snapped back and they ganged up on him.

This dog is great with other dogs though as are my two dogs, trusted them 100% until now. I am absolutely sick about it tthough and cant stop wracking my brain as to what came over them. I am left wondering what they would have done if my friend hadnt bin there to intervene.

I put them together after with my supervision of course and everyone got along.

I am aware it was my fault for leaving my dogs unsupervised with other dogs, and that dogs will be dogs and that my two are a pack and all that, but im just wondering why now? What happened? I dont plan on ever leaving them alone with other dogs again of course I learned my lesson but im so confused and feel just horible and sick to my stomache that my dogs hurt another dog even though it was my fault, or even if the other dog started it I cant help feeling dissapointed in my dogs, I was always so proud of how great they are with other dogs and now I dont know what to think. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Please be gentle I know I messed up, I feel absolutely awful and have beat myself up enough. Thanks.

 Quote: Cat Richter

I was always so proud of how great they are with other dogs and now I dont know what to think. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Your dogs were simply being dogs. How can you be dissapointed in them for doing what is natural?

Why now? Who knows? A set of circumstances which you were not there to see. As you know, it is you who let them down, not them letting you down. You left them unattended with a dog which is food agressive and has already bitten a person, and then ask why???

I'm not sure as to how you don't know what to think... It seems your dogs should never have been left unattended, let alone put in that situation to begin with, doesn't it?

Sorry to hear about this, but you called it: >2 dogs = a pack, and an unsupervised one at that.

As to the Why Now? question, maybe the question should be Why Not Earlier? Dogs are constantly growing and developing as individuals, and without supervision, are working out their place in the pack. Some younger dog got "uppity" and challenged a dog higher in rank? A highly ranked dog needed to put some other dog in it's place? A fight over a female? Between two females over a male? Hard to tell, but you have to remember dogs blast through their lifespan 7 times faster than humans. Any pack situation at one slice in time will be different weeks or months later.

Regardless of the Why? you still have the What to do? to deal with. The dynamics of these dogs relationship has now changed forever. I certainly would not put them back together ever again without an awful lot of groundwork with both dogs, and then under supervision and on leash even.

I have a dog who was the most social, happy-go-lucky dog in the world through his first 9 years. Now he's got PRA, decreasing vision, starting to resource guard, is much more defensive, much more anxious. Conditions have simply changed over time. Now he can't be alone with other dogs unsupervised, ever.