Need some "outsider" insight - dog-dog aggression (long)

 Here are a couple of thoughts:

 When I got my second dog, my first dog took a long while to warm to him. Even now, they play together really well, but if something bad happens to the first dog, she blames the puppy and will snap at him. This morning I walked through the baby gate into the lounge room leaving them both confined to the kitchen as they were wet and muddy. My older dog wanted to come with me. When she was denied, she rounded on the puppy. She does that kind of thing a lot. If she feels thwarted for any reason at all, she takes her frustration out on the puppy. If he gets something she doesn't get, he cops it. I've seen her wait 10 minutes for him to finally get off the couch where he was having a cuddle with us so she could bite him. I can only assume she couldn't stand that he was up there and she wasn't.

Also, my older dog is nervous around tight spaces. She doesn't like to be buffeted. For a while to begin with, she often snapped at the pup when they were standing in a tight space such as a doorway or corridor. She seems fearful that the pup will squash her, step on her, bump her, whatever. She just doesn't want him anywhere near her in tight places. She has relaxed slightly, but he has learnt to give her plenty of space. Doesn't help that she's going blind.

Lastly, fear/surprise is a good catalyst for aggression. If a dog already didn't much like another dog, I would not be at all surprised to see them start something in a moment of fear or suprise. Problem is, once they do it they can form a bit of a habit. I could be wrong, but I think sometimes animals fight because they get used to fighting. After a couple of spats they feel tense whenever they see the other animal approaching, and that makes that animal tense and they are both so wary of having to fight that it kind of becomes inevitable that it will. Kind of like people dictating how a relationship will go wrong through their own fears, if you know what I mean. They become so fixated that they inevitably end up bringing about the very situation they were desperately trying to avoid.

It's pretty hard to tell what's going on between two dogs that live together without seeing them. With my two, I managed to smooth over a lot of the aggression by treating them exactly equal, or giving the older dog a little extra attention. Sometimes she needs a bit of separate love so she feels like she isn't missing out. She is also more interested in people than dogs and loves affection. But if I give them anything good, I make sure they both have ample so there's nothing to fight about. Sounds like fear might be a factor in your situation, though, which makes things a little complicated.

Excellent post, Corvus.

All dogs do not carry a union card and I don't expect all dogs to get along just because they are dogs or just because some past dog was friendly to every one.

Each situation is new and different. Especially if the resident dog has been there first, for a long time, and sees the new dog as upsetting the status quo. I think dogs are in the business of resource acqusition and protection. That's what makes them trainable. When we train them, we give them a way to keep the resources coming, in a sense, using resource guarding to guide behavior, even if it is to alleviate "resource guarding.' Even if we, the humans, are the resource, of either food, attention, or both.

I remember another member here who had a menagerie of animals, including an Akita. Everything was fine until one specific dog was brought in. The Akita, friends with other dogs, did not like this one dog. And in true Akita fashion, this was a never-ending blood feud. Akitas hold grudges forever, group only as the see fit, usually with one human. And when they fight, it is not for social position or dominance, it is to be the one still breathing. The dispensation was that the Akita was re-homed.

My dog does not make friends with every dog he sees. Amongst the dog of neighbors separated by chain-link fences, he acts differently with different dogs. I can tell which dogs it is by the sound, before I look outside.

The behaviors can be trained, somewhat. In some cases, you can reward for not getting in fights with another dog. But for some dogs, that just means they curb their behavior when you're around. Hence, environmental management. A set procedure of what is done and when.

And a realization that all of this may not work, as not all dogs will get along, just as we don't get along with all humans. When we can, we avoid the humans we don't like. So, I don't expect that we can force dogs to like each other, as well. This, of course, may lead to the re-homing of one dog or another, which may be more humane in the long run, rather than being expected to endure a situation that is so stressful to one or both.

I would say "dominance" - although I don't think its a good term. It sounds like you have 2 dogs of similar size, age, and gender who have not yet figured out how to relate to each other.

They are both a little insecure. Dog 1 is pushy, dog 2 is possessive and so friction is happening. I think they need a lot more supervision. No more dogs behind doors, etc. The good news is that they don't hate each other all out, and the squabbles haven't resulted in injury.  

Your first situation is Redirected Aggression.  "Redirected aggression occurs when a dog that is aggressively motivated redirects the aggression from the source to another. For example, a dog that is barking at the door may redirect his aggression onto an owner that is pulling him back. Dominant dogs often redirect onto subordinates."   For me, the last statement in that quote is correct except I believe Dominance is fluid and anyone of my dogs, that is only one will take a Leadership position depending on the situation.  In my home, the most common occurence of Redirected Aggression is triggered by the safety and security need, the need to protect the territory.  This is usually triggered by someone walking by yard and the dog can't tell if its friend or foe.  My resolve is to never have them unattended if there is a chance that the trigger will occur, or at least be within a short earshot.  I also make sure that I can stop by voice command which means the dogs know my "I mean business" tone that is only used when any type of aggression arises.  I have one Great Dane that does Redicted Aggression when I am not at home and someone knocks on the front door.  There was one case and only one case where she mauled my Old English Bulldog.  I desensitized the Great Dane in the situation but because I am not present, I never fully trusted her again.  For that reason, I keep the smaller fosters separated and kenneled for their safety.

Your second situation is food related.  Most likely food resource guarding.  My foundation in dog care philosphy is always keep food in the dog dish or give snacks in a group setting with no expectation of behavior.  Do you snack the dogs from the frig?  Do you snack from  the counter?  Do you do this often?  You may have established a chain in your snacking the dogs where the dogs see the beginning of the chain and then the excitement process starts to escalate. 

Your last situation looks like the dog greeting ritual has gone awry and is probably related to the way you originally introduced the dogs.  I think this is the source of all your agression problems.  When dogs are first introduced they go through a greeting ritual of smelling each other, touching, and displaying all sorts of body language.  IMO, the dog owner should be neutral and not interact with the dogs at all.  The dog owner has a little help from the dog's physiology.  When dogs are in a situation of uncertainity, stress hormones are released and their purpose is to naturally make the dog cautious, preventing excess excitement and thus help prevent fighting from starting.  One of the stages of introduction is play.  Play allows each dog to 'feel' each other out and determine the other's strength and weakness.  Usually the these strength and weakness are enough for the other dog tnot o give a direct challenge.  The dog owner should intervene if social interaction stops.  By intervene, I mean set up situation, the environment that would encourage play and thus the bonding of the dogs.  From your posting, I think I see you allowed the one dog to halt all playing.

I agree with DPU regarding the redirected aggression in the one case. Loud noises or anything that causes a high-alert situation has caused a few fights between my 2 females. However, we've also had the other situations you described cause a fight too. Just my opinion, but it seems that if you have 2 dogs that can and will fight, the causes are going to vary greatly and the only real solution is a strict management routine. Our 2 seemed to like each other okay for a few months too, but once they started having fights, they escalated in terms of frequency and damage. The behaviorist we met with gave us several tips, but the most important was - the more they fight, the lower their threshold for future fights, so preventing them was the priority. That meant not allowing them to be together unless supervised. It's been almost 7 years that we've been dealing with this and they've only had 1 fight this year, so it has gotten better. The last fight we believe was brought on by 2 neighbor dogs fighting and that caused a redirected aggression issue.  It's hard to be prepared for every single trigger and we're still learning. We try to always err on the side of being too cautious.

Hi Cakana,

This is a very serious subject and I am not afraid to say that when any of my dogs fight, it upsets me emotionally and physically, quite a bit.  I am curious to know what the behaviorist says about what the immediate consequences should be.  I know from my own experience is to go back to the introduction phase and encourage play and bonding so the dogs can safely release their natural inborn aggression instead of having it bottled up and then erupt explosively when a certain situation arises. 

Here's a video of my dogs releasing their natural inner aggression tendency through play.  Paganini, the star of the video is small fuzzy black chow mix.  She is dog-on-dog aggressive but after successfully introducing her to my pack, she learned to channel her aggression with play.  I don't think Pags has ever been part of a dog pack.  The other dogs are Petro-black Great Dane, Drizzle-BW Harlequin Great Dane, and then there is Molson-very laid back yellow lab.  The video was shot after Paganini main playmate Marvin was adopted.  The pack was redefining itself and new playmates and relationships were forming.  Now Petro and Pags were becoming playmate.  Nothing in the video alarmed or concerned me.

http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l240/DPU_2006/?action=view¤t=PlaywithoutMarvin_0001.flv

Here's some of what the behaviorist told us;

Some dogs just don't get along ALL the time. Buffy and Sassy generally like each other and she was able to observe that, so she didn't think rehomng either one was necessary

When playing, Sassy saw Buffy as prey. Throw the ball, Buffy chased it and Sassy chased Buffy. It wasn't fun for Buffy after awhile and altho it never actually led to a fight, it had the potential, so we stopped playing with them together in that way. Sassy has major high prey drive, so she suggested playing with her using a flirt pole. Sassy loves it and it allows her to release some of that energy.

She advised not to leave any high value treats or toys out. Toys were never a problem, but Buffy is very food motivated. Example - we were sitting on the patio. Buffy heard a noise in the bushes and went to investigate. Sassy was excited by Buffy's excitement and ran to her. In the blink of an eye, they were in a fight. There was not even time to say "leave it".  One time, Sassy was tossing around a dry leaf on the lawn and Buffy ran over and that led to a fight. That time I was alone and emptied a can of Direct Stop on them with no affect. I used a full on spray of hose - still no affect. Thankfully, my husband heard me yelling and came running to help me separate them. They both had several wounds and Sassy's lower lip had a 2 inch gash in it. I honestly felt that they'd have killed each other if we hadn't separated them. These fights are serious. There's never a growl or snarl, just full on attacks.

She said that we should separate them after they fight, but not within visual distance because they would continue to focus and the aggressive, get-even feelings would fester. We've actually separated them for a couple days when they've had big fights. Even then, you can tell that they haven't forgotten and a small thing could incite another fight.

Finally, she said that she thought trying to sort out who was dominant/alpha/whatever was probably a waste of time and we'd likely get it wrong, so not to worry about who gets fed first, petted first, etc.

Neat video.

Is Molson named after the mellow beer from the great white North? He certainly is mellow and is the color of a pale ale.

I do notice a difference between this and the previous video. Sans Marvin, Drizzle does not physical engage Pags as much, although I couldn't see anything when they decided to carry on around your feet. She seems more content to posture and bark, which got Shadow's attention. Was Drizzle somewhat protective of Marvin? And she scaled up her interaction then to ward off Pags? How insightful.

Corvus:

It seems to be possible that Dog #1 reacts aggressively to Dog #2 whenever she feels that she did not receive something that she wanted. AND, i think the "tight space" thing might be true in our case as well. 

 Ron:

It's true that dogs are not always friends with all the other dogs they meet; and i think that these two will never truly be "friends". Especially since both of them were only dogs, for 6 years prior.

Getting rid of either one is simply not an option. They will have to be managed - which seems do-able at this point in time.

Dog-ma:

I think you hit the nail on the head that they're both a little insecure. It almost seems like there's a personality clash between them. And, once again, I don't think that being "only dogs" for six years helped the situation at all. They've both got some adjusting to do still. 

 DPU:

I'm not sure if the second situation is food-related or simply a space issue (suddenly their space got much smaller when the fridge door opened) but it could be either one, and i'm not sure if there's a way to tell. Neither dogs get fed from the fridge or counter, that i'm aware of.

Re: Play - the problem with them playing to encourage bonding is that Dog #2 doesn't play. They've had her since she was a puppy, but i'm not sure what could have gone wrong to create such a dog. She does play fetch with her owners - but thats it. I've even tried to initiate play with her, but she's not interested. She doesn't like to play chase and doesn't like to be chased (she simply won't move). She also doesn't play with any other dogs. They're useless to her, and she wants nothing to do with them other than a gentle sniff, if even that.

Any other suggestions on how i might make them like each other a little better?  Or how to make the dog play?

The house setup is good such that the dogs can easily be separated when nobody is available to keep an eye on them. One dog goes to the basement, the other is left upstairs.
 

One thing I forgot to mention. For reasons unrelated to the fights, we had Sassy's thyroid checked and it turned out that she was extremely hypothyroid. I'm not sure if our stricter management or putting her on thryoid meds helped (or both), but the fights decreased about the time we put her on meds. You might want to consider getting the thyroid tested for your girls.