Her dominance is escalating.

[lorine.shannon]

I am a caregiver and moved to a small town in Nevada in Feb. of 2018 with an older gentleman who needs help taking care of his 5 dogs, along with himself. The dogs all got along great. The biggest is a German Shepherd down to a larger chihuahua. One is deaf and another has a cleft paw but they all got along great. One day this guy looked over our back fence (they have their own huge yard to play) and asked if I knew who's dog this was that he had on a leash. I looked over and he had a beautiful blue Pit puppy, about 6 months old. I told him no but do not take her to the pound. We would take her if he couldn't find the owners. He said he found her under his truck dying from the 115 degree weather and she seemed to have been abused and ran away.

Two weeks later he came back and said he had no luck and couldn't keep her. He brought her in and asked the gentleman I live with, what he thought. He said she was beautiful and we would keep her.

Everything was going ok, she plays a little rough and I try and stop her and calm her down, but she is so sweet and follows me all around. Then about a week and a half ago, when we were coming home, I was helping the gentleman out of the car into the wheelchair when I heard them really fighting inside. I told him to wait a minute and ran and unlocked the door and saw Blue (the Pit) on top of the female, Dolly, who is American Eskimo mix, who used to be the dominate female. I put Blue in a room by herself for an hour. I have been trying to work with her with the training games and such but between all of the dogs and the man, my time is limited. This is a small town and they don't have any behaviorists that I can find. I love this dog and want to keep her. Please, any suggestions would be welcomed.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hello and welcome to the forum,

It is difficult to assess a situation as such considering that nobody was in the home at the time of the fight and we are therefore missing important information. Perhaps, there was a toy or some other resource (sleeping spot, crumb on the floor) and one of the two dogs was resource guarding? Perhaps, they were playing and things escalated? Perhaps the dogs were barking or overly excited since you were both coming home and they redirected on each other? Perhaps it was just rowdy loud play. Pit bull play often looks and sounds rough particularly to those who aren't familiar with their vocalizations. Their sounds and play style alone are often misinterpreted as aggression.

 

Now, not all dogs appreciate this style of play, so perhaps the other dog was saying in doggy language "hey I don't like that" but Blue ignored that and was taking it further. So many things could have happened. It could therefore be you never witnessed an escalation into rougher play because you have been so good in redirecting her at the earliest signs.

 

It is difficult therefore to make predictions on whether things may work out in this new social group and what can be done. Any new introduction in a group of established dogs is at risks for squabbles along the way. The more dogs, the more there are risks for interactions start or exacerbate at some point. Whether they remain just noisy discussions where nobody gets hurt or escalate into serious blood-shedding fights is not something that can be predicted because there are too many variables and dog behavior can be quite unpredictable at times.

 

Generally, most serious issues surge in households with same-sex dogs and dogs being close to social maturity (12 to 36 months) or in cases where there is a large age gap (younger dog with senior dog). However, true aggression is possible at any age, even in a young puppy. If this was true aggression, this raises a red flag for future issues especially in a puppy of this age.

 

Because we do not know what caused this potential fight, it is not possible for me to garner enough info to provide specific suggestions. For certain, due to this past incident, it would be wise to not leave the dogs alone unsupervised from now on.

 

In such a case, seeing a professional for an assessment remains the best course of action. While I understand there are no behaviorists in a small town, there may be some from farther cities who are willing to travel to assess the situation and gather better information.

 

I must emphasize the importance of finding a behavior professional using humane behavior modification to prevent further stress and tension. There are substantial risks associated with fights in multi-dog households. We must consider the obvious potential injury among the fighting parties (and other dogs potentially joining in) and also the potential injury to dog owners and caretakers as they attempt to separate fighting dogs and risk becoming victims of redirected fights.

Edited December 9, 2018 by Adrienne Farricelli

[lorine.shannon]

Unfortunately, it has happened two more times. Once when I was taking my client outside in his wheelchair. All the dogs get under foot whenever we are in motion and I saw Dolly was trying to stay away from Blue but with the comotion, they were nose to nose. They just started going at it. I grabbed Blue by the collar and sternly said NO. She backed off right away and I put her in the room by herself for about a half an hour. I can't remember what happened the other time. That makes it 3 times. That was about 5 days ago and I haven't been letting them get to close but it leaves my hands tied to do some of the things I have to do. I can't figure out how to straighten it either

Edited December 9, 2018 by lorine.shannon

[JMFS]

Hi Lorine,

 

Out of curiosity, are you able to close her in that room with a Kong or some other safe toy before things are going to be chaotic? That way it would be less of a punishment and more of a reward - hey, everything's going crazy out here, but I'm in here with this awesome treat! Maybe eventually working up to a baby gate so she can see the commotion, and then ultimately allowing her to join the group. What kind of exercise does she get? Does she show signs of separation anxiety? I'm sure Adrienne will have more, but that information will help.

 

PS: Adrienne gave me a link to the PPG where I was able to finally find a non-alpha method behaviorist. https://www.petprofessionalguild.com/ To get a behaviorist to travel from 2 hours away was going to run about $170 per hour, including her travel. I have no idea if that's on the high end or not. I ended up paying for a 6-week package and it was under $600 and she spends more than an hour over here (mainly because I'm terrible about getting people off task, and we end up chatting about all things dog and everything else. It's my Super Power. :rolleyes:). Anyway, I thought of that after I clicked Quick Reply so I decided I better update with that info!

Edited December 9, 2018 by JenniferM.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Thanks Lorine for the additional details. From what it seems, two fights appear to have happened in situations where there was over excitement going on. The third fight though we don't have information. In the first case, the fight was when you were coming home and the second case was when you were taking your client outside in his wheelchair (and from what it sounds I assume all dogs were left and right acting excited). Does this sound like the case?

 

These two episodes provide a few additional pieces to the aggression puzzle although to truly know what is exactly going one would need an in-person evaluation, medical and behavior history taking, finding out as much as possible about antecedents (what stimuli or situations seems to evoke the behavior), followed then by behavior modification with the help of a professional for safety and correct implementation.

 

It *might* be feasible at this point to *possibly* rule out rough play or rough play escalating into a fight considering that in latest episode the context didn't appear to be play-inducing (although at times, there may be several concomitant types of aggression at play) and it appears as if Dolly was attempting to stay away from Blue. This avoidance behavior suggests that there may be tension among the two dogs and perhaps Dolly is becoming aware that, in overly excited situations, Blue tends to "redirect on her. " In negative experiences as such, dogs learn quickly, even one episode may be enough at times, and when that happens it's called one-trial learning.

 

Do you therefore see over-excitement as a common denominator in both incidents? If this sounds like the case, I can provide some information about redirected aggression in dogs (assuming this is what you are dealing with- I can only speculate unfortunately) and what methods can be used to diffuse situations and some general info about behavior modification, but once again, this requires the in-person intervention of a professional for safety and correct implementation.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Adrienne Farricelli