Female Dog Aggression to Another Female in Household

[Suzyq821]

I have a male doxie and female golden retriever, who have always gotten along even though they were older when they were brought into our home. We adopted the doxie 5 years ago and then adopted the golden 2.5 years ago. This past fall we adopted a female doxie mix, not sure of her age, maybe 5-6 yrs old. At that time we had her spayed before bringing her home. During our visits to the adoption center, she never, ever showed any aggression or fear from other dogs and when we did a meet and greet with our two dogs, she was fine. Over the past 2 months, things have changed a bit and she has been aggressive twice towards our golden retriever, this last time drawing blood. I am getting nervous and feel it is something I am doing. It is obvious the female mix is the alpha female. I had allowed her to sleep in bed with us but have decided to stop that and make her sleep in her own bed. The fights took place when the golden encroached on her space, such as the car, and at the front door when returning from a walk. There have been no other altercations over food or toys either. Everything I read on the internet or trainers I've talked to at pet stores, are very different.

As far as we know, they get along fine when we are not at home. Any suggestions on what I can do or not do to help with the situation. We don't want to have to return her as she can be sweet and loves to play. She also tries to hump and poke at the golden which I am trying to discourage with a flyswatter. She knows the basic commands of sit, etc.

Any help is appreciated.

[kjd]

Wow, Suzy,

I put up with the same thing for about 4 years -- I could stop a fight by leaving the area! Was never able to stop it, so ended up re-homing the newer, and younger, dog.

The only suggestion I would make is to calmly put the mix in time-out when she humps or pokes at the golden. I'd think hitting her with a flyswatter might just increase her aggressiveness. [I didn't know about time-out when I had my trouble.] When she realizes attacking the other female only results in losing your attention, she should stop it. Hitting her with the flyswatter, OTOH, is giving her attention. I am sure you have heard of children who misbehave because it is the only way to get attention. You don't want to do that with your new dog!

Let us know how it goes,
kjd

[Suzyq821]

Thanks for your response. I will definitely try the time out. Regarding the fly swatter, I never hit her with it, just show it and she would stop the behavior. But you have brought up a good point that it is giving her attention so will try time outs. Thanks again!

[crazycrayonmom]

If you let her go through the front door before your other golden, does the new dog still show signs of aggression? Does she show aggression around other items in the house like toys?

I'm wondering if this falls under the other discussion we had about allowing a new dog to become dominant in the household if the new dog has a more dominant personality. If you treat the new dog as the more dominant dog, feeding her first, letting her in and out of doors before the other dog, etc., will the problems be eliminated? Just something we were discussing in another thread. Maybe you want to give it a try and see what happens. Let us know if any of our suggestions work.

[Suzyq821]

So are you saying to allow her to be dominant, such as in and out doors first, eating first, etc? She does run through the doors first and on walks wants to be ahead of the other two (who are both a bit slower due to their age 11.5 and 9.5). She is quite the pistol!! As for toys, there is no aggression and we have toys for she and the golden, the male doxie doesn't play (he's too serious for that!). The golden will pick up a toy like she wants to play when the mix starts playing, or the golden will take one of the mixes toys and hold onto it in her mouth but there is no fight over it. When I give out treats after dinner, the mix always sits back waiting til last to get a treat. When we sit down to eat she also goes and sits in her bed and doesn't beg like my other two. She has made it clear that she is to be the first down the stairs in front of the other two and taught them early on by running in front of them and growling to let them know this, so the other two let her go down the stairs first with no problem.

I do think you are right when it comes to coming through the door first. This last fight, the golden and mix were standing at the door while I was unlocking it when she chomped down on the golden's shoulder and wouldn't let go.

Yesterday, I did put her in timeout (the laundryroom) when I caught her humping the golden, and I will say it set her back a few steps and she was much calmer after that.

Just need some clarification if I should allow her to be dominant. Thanks for the reply.

[kjd]

I'm pleased to hear the timeout worked. We don't consider our attention as a highly desired resource, but, of course, it is. That's why children will misbehave when it is the only time their parents pay attention, even though it means a punishment -- at least they have their attention! I suspect, if you ignored a dog except when it did some one thing wrong -- say touched the couch -- even though you yelled at it when it touched the couch, that behavior would increase. You could probably get the dog to destroy the couch, just to get you to yell at it!

As for who should be dominant, I like MaxHollyNoah's policy: the older dogs get first dibs, but nobody is allowed to hurt anyone else. Thus she would allow your mix to go down the stairs first and lead on the walks, but she would stop her from attacking the golden. From the description of your pack, there is no real pack order -- in some cases the mix is #1, in others she is #3. Why bother to impose one? Continue to let them all know that you are the leader and you demand they all "play nice."

A lot of this has probably begun because the mix feels more comfortable in her new home. She is checking out the boundaries. As long as you know what you want and are consistent in imposing them, she will learn the rules and abide by them.

Please do keep us posted on how things work out,
kjd

[MaxHollyNoah]

Hi Suzyq821 and kjd,

I just read the whole thread and noticed that kjd had said exactly what I would like to say:

1. No need to impose dominant status to one particular dog
2. The basic house rules are not to threat/challenge the existing dogs and to respect each other
3. Your new dog seems to be trying to push her boundaries out but it should be carefully monitored and controlled by YOU

In fact, our youngest (and the newest addtion) dog Daisy is such a clever and charming dog. She has managed to make her big sister Holly and big brother Noah allow her to snatch a toy away when we are playing "go get your toys" game. She played this magic in a charming way as she got more and more relaxed in the pack. She knows this is a casual game compared to "taking turns in eating a bone" or something more serious activities for the dogs. Dogs can figure out what they should do and don't among themselves but the owner can also implement the rules that should be followed by each of the pack (four-legged family) members.

In our home, going in and out to the backyard is totally free order. Whoever has the most interest and most in a hurry goes first but there is no growls/fights at all. In first out in the morning, the order is usually Noah - Daisy - Holly. Noah has a strong instinct to go check it out.

On the other hand, when they come back in to eat their breakfast, the order changes to Holly - Daisy - Noah. This shows perfectly who is the most food motivated. They all know that his/her food is safe because I never allow any of them to get to the others' food and they all rush to where his/her fool bowl is placed.

I would reprimand very firmly when your mix challenge/harm your GR. I don't have to do this to my own dogs since they are so good with each other but when I get a new foster dog, this is the very first thing I teach the dog. If the dog tries to go beyond the boundary to challenge my dogs, I grab his collar and tell him firmly "NO. This is not allowed in our family!" as I look into his eyes. But in the mean time, I give a lot of positive attention to the dog when he behaves well so that he would not think that he can only get my attention when he does some bad things.

Hope your three dogs will learn to live without conflicts soon. Usually same sexes are hard to get along so I can see why the mix only picks on your GR

Anyway, your old dogs don't deserve any threats or bleeding after all their happy years with you. The new dog really needs to learn to respect them!

[Suzyq821]

Thanks everyone for replying! I have definitely learned a lot and am already implementing the ideas starting with the timeouts and will reprimand any growls and poking she displays. Of course, she gets lots of attention during play time and I am giving her positive reinforcement too! I have decided to walk her alone to avoid any more conflicts at the door. I was a bit surprised that after the last fight, which she started, she seemed to be traumatized by sitting on my husband's side of the bed, shaking with glazed eyes and would snap if I tried to touch her. At first I thought she might be hurt, but by evening she had snapped out of it. Any ideas on why she displayed this behavior?

[kjd]

What happened to end that fight? What did you do?

I think we need a bit more information before suggesting anything.

kjd

[Suzyq821]

To end the fight, I picked up the mix, and of course she wouldn't let go of the golden, finally a neighbor saw me and asked if I needed help, I asked her to bring me a snowball and when she walked up to the porch the mix was distracted and finally let go of the golden. I know now that I should not have picked her up. I then put the mix in the backyard so I could get the golden inside so blood wouldn't get on the carpet. Once I cleaned up the golden (there was no broken skin that I could find, just some hair that was pulled out) the golden went to the door to backyard and the mix tried to jump at her through the window. I stood in front of the door before allowing her in. When she came in I pointed her to her bed to lay down and that is what she did. Then the pouting started and she went upstairs.