Dog problem

I have 2 dogs, lab-chow mix, both females who share the same mother, but were from seperate litters. The oldest one, Camille, has gotten along o.k. with the younger, Cassandra, fine except for a growl once in awhile.

But now that they are both over the age of 1yr, Camille has begun to jump on Cassie, sometimes for no reason that I see. She hasnt done any injuries yet, and I dont know if its just an Alpha dog thing going on, but when its happening , its frightening!

I have never owned an aggressive dog before, and someone told me that its the Chow strain in her thats making her this way, shea wonderful with little kids, and LOVES cats, but she will fly on Cassie. I am at a loss to figure out what the problem is.

Could the fact that Camile is spayed and Cassie isnt have anything to do with it? HELP!!!l

 

Spaying IME has little to no effect on dog to dog aggression when females are involved, although it can sometimes help with males. Same sex dog are always iffy as to if they will get along after they mature or not. The closer in age they are IME the more likely you are to see issues. I have two very close in age female shepherds who were best buddies until they were both over two. They started getting into fights, which turned into bloody fights and have now been separated for the past 6 years. By separated I mean I still have them both but they never see each other. I call it RotatoDog - they are rotated around so that they are not loose together in the hour or outdoors ever. Often times with female dogs (called bitches...really LOL) once the fighting starts it is very hard to get them to get along again.

Chows do have a tendency to be same sex aggressive as do Rotties, GSDs, Boxers, Bully breeds and many others. Here is an article to help you understand a little better what is going on between your dogs and why:
http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/archives/bitch.txt

 

I am obsessed with Caeser Milan, and suggest you pick up his book.

One of the key factors into how your dogs behave is the way YOU are. If while this happens, you back away and become scared, this isn't going to solve anything. YOU must be the Alpha, not one of the dogs, or both of them for that matter, even if it's just over each other. They need to see you as the authority, and they are equals.

I know we all love to act as if our pets are humans, because we connect with them on such a level, but the fact is they ARE different species and have much different natural instincts than we do as humans.

I feel that to correctly train a dog, you must get in tune with your instincts as well...when you sense tension between the two, correct them before the fight occurs. This could be done with a firm command [but no intense screaming... if you become frazzled, you lose control] or otherwise some other form of command, a certain noise, a brief pull on the collar, etc. They must be aware that you do not accept this behavior, and that it will not be tolerated.

Make sure whatever sort of command you choose that it stays consistent. Don't say "NO!" one time, and tug the collar the next time.

Some of the warning signs of tension between two dogs is their tails. If one dog is walking around with her tail stiffly in the air, it is usually a sign of dominance... Correct this behavior immediately and make sure she is submissive to you.

Though different breeds may have different personalities, I believe it is possible to correctly train ANY dog.

But you must relax and be at ease, otherwise you are submissing to their dominant behavior.

 

I thank you both for the book suggestion's,and have just called and orderd them , I really dont want to end up having to give up one of them, they really are like members of the family.
I have had big dogs all my life,always a male and female pairing,so I guess thats why I have never seen this behavior before. I have even caught the older one trying to intimedate the younger one away from the food with a horrible stare!

 

Does the "fighting" seem to be aggressive? Is it starting mostly when they seem to be irritated by each-other?

We had two dogs, one is bullmastiff, rottweiler, boxer and lab and he's the male (we still have him). The other was pit bull and boxer (we gave her to my husband's parents because she deserved better care, but we rescued her from a VERY bad situation until we could find her a good family) and she's [obviously] female.

From the time we got the second one (the little girl) they would "play fight"... we knew it was okay, because one of our friends has our dog's littermate and even being two unspayed 1-year-old males, they never actually fight. There's a HUGE difference between fighting and play fighting. With our two, we knew they were fine as long as they weren't excessively barking. They would occasionally bark, jump, dive-bomb each other, show their teeth and growl A LOT, bat at each-others' faces with their paws, take each-other down on the floor (one dog standing, the other underneath on their back) ...pretty much anything you could imagine two "fighting" dogs doing... without ever seriously biting each-other. They'd even get ahold of ears, tails, excess skin on the other's face (as you could imagine with one of them being part bullmastiff), paws, legs, and sometimes the bigger one (the male) would get our poor little girl's ENTIRE face in his mouth. We never worried, because as mean as it looked, they were actually extremely gentle about it. It was just fun to them, especially since my husband and I VERY strongly established the "mommy/daddy" (or "alpha" pack member) positions early-on.
Here's a picture of them playing... keep in mind, they look like they were getting VERY agressive with each-other, but neither of them would ever actually (purposely) hurt the other.

 

While I like a lot of what Cesar says and does I totally disagree with his take on dog to dog aggression. Fighting such as this is not generally a "leadership" issue. Both of my shepherds are well trained and don't challenge leadership. They still fight because they are a same sex dogs of a dominant breed. In a wild pack situation one of them would have been run out or killed and the "alpha" would have had nothing to do with it. In packs most fighting occurs between mid-ranking dogs - both the lowest and highest ranking dogs in a pack know their place. The mid ranking dogs are the ones who are always vying for position.

I think Cesar can keep his dogs, even of dominant breeds together is because they are not in a normal home life situation. While loose in his dog yard someone is always supervising interactions and at night the dogs are kenneled. He exercises the dogs about 6 hours a day - hard physical exercise like rollerblading with them and hiking. That alone certainly takes the edge off any dog. Most people who have lives which don't revolve around dogs and training simply can't devote that much time to exercising their dog.

Cesar is IMo a good dog trainer with some good ideas, not all of which are that useful to average dog owners. He's not really saying or doing much which is new to the dog world and certainly not someone to be "obsessed" with. There are tons of good trainers out there with good books and ideas. In my 12+ years training dogs I have found it's not useful to take a little from each and use what works on individual dogs and situations.

 

It's not playing, The older one really means it when she turns on the younger one. I dont know if maybe the younger one just looks at her the wrong way, because they can be laying down, not doing anything, and suddenly the older one will just spring on the younger one, growling ,and grab ahold of her! of course, the younger one lays still untill its over,then the older one will act like nothing happened!?