Fighting

Josie gets into fights with her playmates every so often and will not back down once she starts so we have to break them up. Is this a dominance issue and should we be concerned?

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Permalink Reply by Ross on February 11, 2009 at 3:54pm

Not as long as you break it up.
Atlas and Scout play VERY rough with one another, but that's just how they like to play, every once in awhile things get a little too intense and we seperate them for a minute or two before letting them resume playing.
Know your dog and recognize the signs of aggression, don't be afraid to step in and give your pup a bit of a time out to cool off if things start to escalate.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Stanton on February 12, 2009 at 4:02pm

My little Ethel Barrymore also gets into fights once in a while. She'll be happily chasing and wrestling another dog, when someone crosses an unseen line, and the play escalates into noisy, nasty sounding fighting. Interestingly, it seems to be all flash and show -- no one actually makes a lot of direct contact, just loud vocalizing and teeth baring/gnashing. I also break it up quickly. It doesn't happen all that often, but I still find it upsetting. She is not an alpha dog -- will go into a submissive stance with anyone larger and older all the time, and she's actually #3 in our family pack (after me and her uncle, Bertie Wooster). These rare little tiffs seem to be with another female in her general age range (1-2 years), and so I wonder sometimes if it has to do with pack behavior. Even though neither is top dog material, do they still like to sort out their own relative pack position? And is there anything else one can do besides be vigilant?