aggressive behavior

Well our Sherman is a very loveable dog but he is very dominating. If I am telling one of the other dogs what to do, he has to run over in a huff and make sure they are minding. In the past two weeks we have had several dog fights and these are pretty scary all involving Sherman and Bandit or Casey (both red heelers and brothers). On Tuesday (5 days ago) we had Sherman neutered so we are hoping this will help a lot. Yesterday we were all outside doing chores, mowing lawn etc and Sherman attacked Bandit for no reason but we couldn't get Sherman off of Bandit (who weighs 20 pounds more), he latched onto his neck/shoulder and wouldn't release we finally got him off and he ended up with 15 stitches and $375 vet bill. Bandit and Casey (heelers will be neutered here in the next month.) I hope this will help our issue.

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Permalink Reply by Charlie on May 3, 2008 at 5:41pm

Certainly a pack of unneutered dogs are likely to have fights for pack ranking, especially if you are inadvertantly treating a subordinate dog as leader (when another dog is the dominant dog) or vise versa.

Having them all neutered may solve your problem. It should at least cut down on the number of fights. They will continue to have high-level of testosterone in their system for 6 months after neutering, but you may see less aggressive behavior in 2-3 months after they have all had their surgeries.

Since the fighting has already started, and been allowed to happen more than once, there is a possibility that they may never completely get along unsupervised. You can teach each dog to ignore other dogs (at least while you are supervising) by some behavior modification and leash work.

If the neutering and training are not effective, then you may just have to keep them separated (separate play times, kennels, food, etc) when you are not closely watching.

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Permalink Reply by Michelle on May 3, 2008 at 7:17pm

Thank you for your insite and of course I really do agree that when you have more than 1 male dog together they need neutered as my husband has now learned and hopefully not too late.

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Permalink Reply by Sam on May 3, 2008 at 6:41pm

Neutering should help but it always makes sense to do this BEFORE the problems start. You mentioned that you were mowing the yard. I suspect your corgi boy responds to some noises in a highly exciteable way. This could be the trigger for this particular incident. Any cause of high excitement can trigger acts of aggression where several dogs are involved. You may wish to separate the dogs at times such as these. His behavior toward the other dogs should never be allowed. Sounds like he would be a good candidate for NILF, a training class and spending some time on lead tied to you so you can make the necessary corrections.

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Permalink Reply by Michelle on May 3, 2008 at 7:21pm

Yes I agree neutering should've been done some time ago but mowing the yard had nothing to do with our corgie's behavior as he has been around this for sometime and never reacted this way. This behavior has really gotten bad in past three weeks but I believe we are on the road to fixing the situation. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by James on May 3, 2008 at 7:40pm

Wow, that is one brave little Corgi taking on a pack of red heelers. Try and make sure he gets a TON of excercise and comes in absolutely pooped. But not excercise playing with other dogs :)