Aggressive puppy...help!

Cliona99

Hello, first time I've posted here, I would really appreciate your opinions. I have a six month old, female collie cross. She is a sweet, friendly dog when it comes to human beings. She has never been badly treated, but she is very aggressive towards my other dog.

My other dog is older and very placid and calm. The puppy just decides to attack for no reason that I can see. And it's not just the big fights that worry me, she'll run over and nip the older dog on the side or the leg and then run away. She's such a little bully.

Now that the puppy is getting bigger and stronger I'm starting to seriously worry about what could happen if I wasn't there to pull them apart. I don't know what to do. I thought she'd settle down as she got older but for the last three days in a row I've had to drag the pair of them apart, and I was honestly surprised to see no blood.

I've tried to train the pup not to fight with the dog (she's clever enough to pick up fetch and other tricks in five minutes) but when it comes to biting and fighting she just doesn't want to learn.

Does anyone here have any suggestions? Can she be trained not to bite/fight? A friend of mine adopted this puppy's sister and had problems with her biting and snapping at people, could it just be bad genes?
I'd really appreciate any insight.

portgirl123

What age were she takin away from her mam and litter mates at?

Cliona99

About 11 weeks.

andreac

Is your other dog male or female and are they neutered?

Cliona99

Other dog is female and neutered. Puppy hasn't been neutered yet. Could she become less aggressive after the operation?

tk123

Has she had much socialization with other pups? If she bites one of them they'll yelp and she'll quickly learn what's playing and whats going too far.

dvet

There are loads of causes of aggression in dogs and they all have different treatments. Aggression between 2 dogs in the same home is very common and is usually status related. Aggression between a dog and its owners/other humans may have many causes e.g. status related, territorial, fear related, learned behaviour etc, so what the two pups are doing (yours and her litter mate) are probably not linked.

As in your case, when a new dog is introduced to a house there is often fights between them for the first while, until they sort out who is the top dog and who is in 2nd place. Although they normally sort it out fairly quickly and become friends again, if not handled properly it can potentially get very serious. The fights normally (but not always) happen near food/doorways and very often only happen when the owner is there.

They won't stop fighting until they have decided which one is dominant and which one is subordinate. There are a couple of things you can do to help them sort out their fighting:
- first of all, to avoid any circumstances that you know will cause aggression -e.g. separate them at feeding time if they're been fighting over food.
- try to work out which dog is on 'top', (NB. usually the dog that starts the fights!) and support that ranking. If you disrupt the hierarchy that they are trying to establish, you will only prolong their fighting.
- this is important: When a fight breaks out, separate the dogs (without scolding them if possible), and put the higher ranking dog in a favoured place, e.g. in the living room with you. Put the other dog in a different, less favoured room for a little while (maybe 20 mins). This feels really wrong at the time because it feels like you are rewarding the 'bad attacker' dog and punishing the 'poor victim' dog - but it actually helps!
- unless the aggression is really severe, try to keep them together as much as possible, so that they become familiar with one another.
- if they were boys, you could neuter them, but since they're girls it has much less of an effect.
- really important point: make sure that you are the real 'top dog' above all. If you're having any trouble with this, it helps to do things like feeding yourself before you allow them to eat, keeping them off the furniture, not allowing them to sleep on human beds etc (dogs recognise all of these things as meaning that you are in charge). Also general obedience training really helps with this.

As I said, all of this is fairly specific to status related aggression between 2 dogs. If either of them start to become aggressive towards you, that's another story and you should probably look for advice from a dog behaviourist.

Anyway most dogs sort it out fairly quickly once yo know what to do, so I wouldn't worry too much. Often dogs that seem to hate each other become great friends when they establish their boundaries

(i hope that wasn't too much info in one go! I'm a great one for making my posts a million miles too long!! )

dvet

I forgot to add that when it comes to new puppies, it often happens that they often get along fine with the other dog at first, but then after a few months of being friendly, the puppy suddenly starts to pick fights. This is because they've matured and gotten a bit more confident, and start to challenge the other dog for top spot. That often really confuses owners because the dogs start fighting after being friendly for ages!

Daniel S

Do you watch the Dog Whisperer?

dvet

mtb_kng wrote: »

Do you watch the Dog Whisperer?

Don't know if you're asking me, but no...so i've no idea if this is what he would advise, hehe! I studied animal behaviour for a while tho, but would be far from an expert!!

Daniel S

Lookup Ceaser Milan (He's the dog whisperer :P),National Geographic Channel or youtube would be your best bet.

dvet

mtb_kng wrote: »

Lookup Ceaser Milan (He's the dog whisperer :P),National Geographic Channel or youtube would be your best bet.

I've heard of him alright - but never really got a chance to watch the show! I'll have to look it up now tho - It'll be the NG channel for me... t'internet is shocking here!

Cliona99

tk123 wrote: »

Has she had much socialization with other pups? If she bites one of them they'll yelp and she'll quickly learn what's playing and whats going too far.

She really hasn't been around other dogs much at all. The older dog will yelp when she's bitten though, and it doesn't put her off!

Cliona99

Thank you so much, your advice is fantastic! If they are arguing about hierarchy, I've been doing everything wrong! I've been trying to make the older dog the dominant one, (just because she was here first), and the puppy subordinate. So when they fight I give Gilly all the love and attention because she's the 'victim' and I've been punishing the pup as the aggressor. So I could just be confusing everybody and prolonging the power-struggle. (Puppy has never shown any aggression towards me, or towards any other people).

I'm going to try everything you've suggested and see if it makes a difference.
Thanks again!

tk123

Cliona99 wrote: »

She really hasn't been around other dogs much at all. The older dog will yelp when she's bitten though, and it doesn't put her off!

I'd pack her off to daycare if there's one near you (our guy goes to DTI and loves it) - she'll learn manners in no time lol.

dvet

No problem I would have had the exact same reaction before as well. But once you know the reasoning behind it, it makes sense! Hope your two start getting along soon!