Letting dogs *work it out*

spiritdogs

There is a distinct difference between letting dogs work it out in the context of your own household pack, versus encounters with unknown dogs.  I give a lot more latitude to dogs that I know, and less to dogs that I don't know.  I have found that many dogs can learn, contextually, that they are not to mount, bully, obsess on other dogs, or escalate in the training center. I don't put my dogs, or my clients dogs,. in a situation where they have to worry about working it out in a public setting.  So, I do agree that, as a handler, you should not have to tolerate aggressive displays from or against your dog in that context.

Also,  working it out while there is a kid around is not the same as working it out WITH a kid.  As we know, any interruption of aggression can lead to a redirected bite, and dogs often bite their own owners or others in that situation.  So, when dogs fight, get the kids out of there first, and intervene with an OBJECT and not your hands.  Dog to dog aggression is separate from dog to human aggression in most other cases, so a dog that continually challenges other dogs is not necessarily going to challenges humans, young or old, although it is certainly possible and with some dogs, probable.  The two forms of aggression are not mutually exclusive either.

You are correct about repeat fights in one sense.  But, it is often our interference that causes dogs to continue to fight, since they never resolve the issue.  So, that, my friend, is a double edged sword.  So, it is still important to know dogs very well before assuming that you should or should not intervene, and you can't really make a blanket statement about it.  Everything depends on the context, the dogs' ages, the gender and breed of the dogs involved, and their prior history (if any), etc.

Thats your opinion, not mine

So do follow your dog around wherever it goes so you can protect it from other dogs it meets? I don't know about you, but I actually am not with my dogs 24/7, and if I were I think I would find it difficult to interrupt a split-second snap from the other side of a room. Most of the altercations I see aren't very physical and are over in less than 3 seconds. I am okay with a 3 second flash of teeth and "rawf!" if it keeps the peace, which I believe it does. I don't intervene because I don't need to. My dogs can take care of themselves. Well, Penny can. Kivi is still a puppy and goes belly up when another dog lifts its lip at him. Penny taught him that through shows of aggression. Don't you think knowing when to go belly up could prevent a more serious argument for him in the future? 

Don't you think knowing when to go belly up could prevent a more serious argument for him in the future?

Yes, which is why it is so critically important to socialize young puppies to other puppies, dogs, cats, people - so they understand the language of each, and can react appropriately.  It is often dogs that are un- or under-socialized, members of genetically dog aggressive breeds, or dogs that get mixed or incorrect signals from other dogs or humans, that fight seriously.  Most well socialized dogs are ritualistic fighters, thus they don't draw blood or escalate beyond one of them showing the deference you mention, although not all of them have to go belly up to do that - there are more subtle signals, too, that they can use.

 I am kinda with espencer on this one.  My dogs are very well socialized and I own a dog park.  I am very aware of what is play and what is aggression and I will intervene when I see aggression or a situation that will lead to aggression. 

In our household, Selli and Duff have never had more than a growl between them (maybe once every six months) but they do play very physically and Duffy makes a lot of noise when he is playing with Selli.  I don't intervene with their interactions.  Sometimes Duffy can be a sh*t when we babysit other dogs.  We do not let him get away with it.  Like most bullies, he picks on dogs who will not stand up to him.  These situations will not work themselves out other than having the guest dog be too afraid to walk past Duffy.  I consider stopping Duffy to be part of my teaching him manners.

When we are outside, I analyze the situations and act as I see fit.  If a bully dog is posturing with Selli, I will body block that dog away from Selli.  I had a situation where I did that once and the dog then growled at me. My major responsibility as the head, leader or mother figure is to protect my pack, so I let them know, by my actions, that I will take care of aggressive dogs and they don't have to.  I do let Selli and Duffy to tell off dogs who try to hump them, and to give minor corrections to puppies who are over the top, but if it is a situation where they feel they need to give a correction, I will remove them from the situation ASAP and walk on.

I have a friend's dog who is a bully and had an earned reputation for going after dogs.  He has never hurt another dog, but he had them pinned on the ground and the noise was horrible.  I know this dog very well and I have no fear of pulling him off the other dogs.  More often, I can see him starting to go into the frame of mind to go after another dog and get him away from the situation (he is not allowed to visit our dog park).

If dogs are what I call trash talking, I advise people to intervene and take the dogs away from each other.  If dogs start to go fight, I will body block them apart.  The adrenaline rush a dog gets is self-rewarding for some dogs and the more often you allow them to fight, the more likely they are to do it.  I don't care if the dogs don't settle things between them, they need to learn to deal with frustration.  There are people I don't like, but I don't have to work out our differences, I avoid them.

I tend to anthropomorphize, but I think with dogs living in human society, we have to teach/train them to be polite when interacting with other dogs, and we as humans need to take a pro-active role in these meetings and interactions for the sakes of our dogs.

In terms of general meetings, I don't believe dogs need to sort out who is alpha to whom.  They can, and I see it all this time, just interact as individuals without rigid a hierarchy.

 For the most part, I don't let fights happen.  My dogs are rarely put in a situation where they will need to tell another dog off because I step in for them. The only exception I make is for pups and adolescents, where the adult dog can tell it like it is sooo much better than I can.

FWIW, I do pretty much the same with William.  If they look uncomfortable, I move William away.  What is more likely to happen is that William will do something I that I know they dislike from previous experience and observation, so I will move him away the very second as he starts doing it.  As such, when William IS a touch too clumsy or excited.... they turn and look at me, expecting me to deal with it.  They KNOW, from thousands of past experiences... that I will ALWAYS step in on their behalf.  It's my job.

Where other dogs are concerned... What I WON'T do, is correct an aggressive display AND move the instigator.  If the dog felt compelled to growl, snap or show teeth then I *failed* in my job.  I seperate the dogs and chalk it up to experience: "watch better next time".  Just like with toilet training.

GoldenAC

 I am kinda with espencer on this one.  My dogs are very well socialized and I own a dog park.  I am very aware of what is play and what is aggression and I will intervene when I see aggression or a situation that will lead to aggression. 

In our household, Selli and Duff have never had more than a growl between them (maybe once every six months) but they do play very physically and Duffy makes a lot of noise when he is playing with Selli.  I don't intervene with their interactions.  Sometimes Duffy can be a sh*t when we babysit other dogs.  We do not let him get away with it.  Like most bullies, he picks on dogs who will not stand up to him.  These situations will not work themselves out other than having the guest dog be too afraid to walk past Duffy.  I consider stopping Duffy to be part of my teaching him manners.

When we are outside, I analyze the situations and act as I see fit.  If a bully dog is posturing with Selli, I will body block that dog away from Selli.  I had a situation where I did that once and the dog then growled at me. My major responsibility as the head, leader or mother figure is to protect my pack, so I let them know, by my actions, that I will take care of aggressive dogs and they don't have to.  I do let Selli and Duffy to tell off dogs who try to hump them, and to give minor corrections to puppies who are over the top, but if it is a situation where they feel they need to give a correction, I will remove them from the situation ASAP and walk on.

I have a friend's dog who is a bully and had an earned reputation for going after dogs.  He has never hurt another dog, but he had them pinned on the ground and the noise was horrible.  I know this dog very well and I have no fear of pulling him off the other dogs.  More often, I can see him starting to go into the frame of mind to go after another dog and get him away from the situation (he is not allowed to visit our dog park).

If dogs are what I call trash talking, I advise people to intervene and take the dogs away from each other.  If dogs start to go fight, I will body block them apart.  The adrenaline rush a dog gets is self-rewarding for some dogs and the more often you allow them to fight, the more likely they are to do it.  I don't care if the dogs don't settle things between them, they need to learn to deal with frustration.  There are people I don't like, but I don't have to work out our differences, I avoid them.

I tend to anthropomorphize, but I think with dogs living in human society, we have to teach/train them to be polite when interacting with other dogs, and we as humans need to take a pro-active role in these meetings and interactions for the sakes of our dogs.

In terms of general meetings, I don't believe dogs need to sort out who is alpha to whom.  They can, and I see it all this time, just interact as individuals without rigid a hierarchy.

Honestly I think pretty much everyone in this thread is in agreement.  I don't think any of us are advocating for letting dogs actually fight it out.  When I say I am hands off, I mean in situations like a puppy jumps in the face of an adult dog and the adult dog gives a short growl and walks away, or one dog is being too boisterous to another dog and the other dog flashes teeth, etc.  I don't have a problem with dogs setting their own boundaries or asking another dog to please stop.  I think there's a very big spectrum between that and an actual fight. 

corvus

So do follow your dog around wherever it goes so you can protect it from other dogs it meets? I don't know about you, but I actually am not with my dogs 24/7, and if I were I think I would find it difficult to interrupt a split-second snap from the other side of a room.

Nope, actually my dog follow me instead, do you leave your dogs unsupervised every time they meet other dogs? Is not really hard to interrupt a potential altercation from the other side of the room, usually a voice correction is enough, if he is meeting other dogs i am not at the other side of the room anyway

Are we talking about strange dogs or dogs that live together?

Strange dogs - sometimes my dogs are beside me, sometimes not. We have a good dog park and often my dogs are meeting new dogs well out of my reach. I let them because I know Penny will leave any dubious dog alone and Kivi has to learn when to leave dogs alone so I can trust him the way I trust Penny. Penny is such a pro she constantly shows me how clumsy my dog speak is. Kivi has a good emergency recall and will come back when we call no matter how badly he wants to commit suicide talking to a dog that doesn't want to talk to him. I let Penny growl and snap all she likes at strange dogs because she's never started a fight that way, but is good at keeping herself comfortable without my intervention. I've never even seen Kivi look aggressive.

My dogs - are unsupervised together most of the time. I tell Penny when I'd rather she left Kivi alone, or when I can see she's thinking of picking on him. If she was only thinking about it, she'll leave off. If she has already decided to do it, she'll do it anyway and then take herself outside as she knows that's where I'm going to send her. As I'm not with them 24/7, Kivi has had to learn when it's prudent to leave Penny alone. He has gone above and beyond that and can now turn shows of aggression in Penny into a boistrous game if he plays it right. I've seen him play it right and play it wrong. He's perfecting his technique and ever learning how best to deal with a cranky old girl. Dogs can do such wonderful things when left to it. It blows me away that at 4 months old that pup had Penny so figured out that he could confidently goad her into a game with tactics I thought would get him told off. He knows her better than I do, and I've been with her for 12 years! It's so easy for dogs that I often think intervening actually hampers them rather than helps them.

do you leave your dogs unsupervised every time they meet other dogs? Is not really hard to interrupt a potential altercation from the other side of the room, usually a voice correction is enough, if he is meeting other dogs i am not at the other side of the room anyway

seriously espencer you think you can control a strange aggressive dog with a voice correction from across the room???

you only have one small dog if I recall correctly and no experience with multi-dog households.

Actually, I thought Spencer was getting himself another Malamute. But anyway, we can't all be with our dogs 24/7. Especially me. I have to work outside of the home. And, if DW and I are both working during the day, Shadow is outside in the back yard.

Granted, I won't allow unlimited access, especially to a stranger dog until I can see how they are together and would still monitor the situation. But for that, I can call off and Shadow will "off". At least, so far.

But Liesje's point was not about dogs aiming to cause pain. Just dogs that are setting boundaries with each other, something they will do regardless of how we train them or how we walk them. So, I value SD's point to monitor the situation mixed with allowing dogs to define their spaces with each other.

But I am also agreeing with Golden AC that dogs that really want to fight shouldn't be allowed to, as it can become a default behavior when meeting strange dogs. That's why I quit walking Shadow in our little town. Too many loose, snarky dogs.

mudpuppy

seriously espencer you think you can control a strange aggressive dog with a voice correction from across the room???

you only have one small dog if I recall correctly and no experience with multi-dog households.

strange aggressive?? i dont remember including the words "strange" or "aggressive", i was talking about MY dog

What's the difference about what type of dog do i have? Corvus among may others own only small dogs, are they less qualified? I own a 100+ pounds nine months old Alaskan Malamute named Chuck, Malamutes are well known for being powerful, independent and strong-willed, Chuck is all 3 for sure

Liesje

GoldenAC

 I am kinda with espencer on this one.  My dogs are very well socialized and I own a dog park.  I am very aware of what is play and what is aggression and I will intervene when I see aggression or a situation that will lead to aggression. 

In our household, Selli and Duff have never had more than a growl between them (maybe once every six months) but they do play very physically and Duffy makes a lot of noise when he is playing with Selli.  I don't intervene with their interactions.  Sometimes Duffy can be a sh*t when we babysit other dogs.  We do not let him get away with it.  Like most bullies, he picks on dogs who will not stand up to him.  These situations will not work themselves out other than having the guest dog be too afraid to walk past Duffy.  I consider stopping Duffy to be part of my teaching him manners.

When we are outside, I analyze the situations and act as I see fit.  If a bully dog is posturing with Selli, I will body block that dog away from Selli.  I had a situation where I did that once and the dog then growled at me. My major responsibility as the head, leader or mother figure is to protect my pack, so I let them know, by my actions, that I will take care of aggressive dogs and they don't have to.  I do let Selli and Duffy to tell off dogs who try to hump them, and to give minor corrections to puppies who are over the top, but if it is a situation where they feel they need to give a correction, I will remove them from the situation ASAP and walk on.

I have a friend's dog who is a bully and had an earned reputation for going after dogs.  He has never hurt another dog, but he had them pinned on the ground and the noise was horrible.  I know this dog very well and I have no fear of pulling him off the other dogs.  More often, I can see him starting to go into the frame of mind to go after another dog and get him away from the situation (he is not allowed to visit our dog park).

If dogs are what I call trash talking, I advise people to intervene and take the dogs away from each other.  If dogs start to go fight, I will body block them apart.  The adrenaline rush a dog gets is self-rewarding for some dogs and the more often you allow them to fight, the more likely they are to do it.  I don't care if the dogs don't settle things between them, they need to learn to deal with frustration.  There are people I don't like, but I don't have to work out our differences, I avoid them.

I tend to anthropomorphize, but I think with dogs living in human society, we have to teach/train them to be polite when interacting with other dogs, and we as humans need to take a pro-active role in these meetings and interactions for the sakes of our dogs.

In terms of general meetings, I don't believe dogs need to sort out who is alpha to whom.  They can, and I see it all this time, just interact as individuals without rigid a hierarchy.

 

Honestly I think pretty much everyone in this thread is in agreement.  I don't think any of us are advocating for letting dogs actually fight it out.  When I say I am hands off, I mean in situations like a puppy jumps in the face of an adult dog and the adult dog gives a short growl and walks away, or one dog is being too boisterous to another dog and the other dog flashes teeth, etc.  I don't have a problem with dogs setting their own boundaries or asking another dog to please stop.  I think there's a very big spectrum between that and an actual fight. 

 Liesje has it right.  No one is suggesting that anyone would let vicious dog fights go on.  But, a tiff, as with an adult to pup correction, or the squabbling that occurs as dogs approach social maturity, is normal behavior, the unnecessary interruption of which can be detrimental, because if that tiff isn't settled, some dogs feel compelled to keep at it until it is settled.  They need to know where they fit in the social group.  But, certainly, those are ritualistic fights designed to avoid a real bloodbath. Letting dogs "work it out" applies to that normal continuum of behavior, but not to the situations where there is blood drawn, or the dogs are escalating out of control, or one dog is obsessively bullying another.  Apples and oranges.

I'd like to see more pictures of Chuck for sure!!

espencer

Corvus among may others own only small dogs 

Kivi ain't so small anymore!   He's no Mal, but he's now twice the size of Penny and very nearly the same size as Jill, who is a wee bit bigger than a Kelpie. People always pick him for a Mal puppy (in a "nice Mal? Is it a Mal?" sort of way), but he's a lot sweeter than Mals typically are . He doesn't feel very small when he's standing on my chest/crash-tackling/refusing to go where I want him to go. But as I said, he so far doesn't work things out, opting to avoid conflict at all costs, so he doesn't really count.

But yeah, I didn't know you needed to own more than one dog or large dogs to know something about how you want your dogs to interact with other dogs. There is a definite difference between dogs that know one another and dogs that don't. I've found verbal corrections to be slightly better than useless, but my dogs know if they do it anyway the worst that will happen is I'm not very happy with them and separate them from all the fun for a bit. If Penny wants to tell Kivi off more than she doesn't want to be outside on her own, she'll tell Kivi off regardless of my verbal warning. I'm cool with that. She's her own dog and I don't really want her to do everything I say. Sometimes she knows better, and when she doesn't do what I say it teaches me something. And now that Kivi is used to her and spends the day with her, I'm not there to rescue him so he'd better learn when to leave her alone. My issue with interfering is that I don't think it's necessary, and in fact I think it inhibits dogs from learning how to be dogs. I think of all the times Penny has given me "the look" because I've been trying to pull her away from a dog I've thought to be aggressive but she has judged to just need a ritual and respectful greeting. She got that good through me NOT interfering, so why mess with a natural process? I've been delighted to watch Kivi Tarro going through the same process, learning how different dogs expect different things. His puppy licence has kept him safe so far and hopefully by the time it wears out he will know more or less how to mix with other dogs without starting or provoking fights.

ETA, Spence, beautiful dog, but you'd never catch me with a Mal! Kivi Tarro almost never has spitz moments of "actually, I don't think I will". I like those moments, but I like them to be moments, not the norm.

Totally OT but I like your new sig, Corvus.