Dog Community

dogs and toys

Posted : 11/23/2007 7:26:44 PM

i was at a relatives house over thanksgiving, my dog and her 2 goldens were getting along swimmingly and all the sudden they had a standoff that i could only describe as scary. face to face 1 pitmix(1 year 7 mos) and 1 purebreed golden (3years) were snarling and growling and looked to be on the knife edge of a fight, i was shocked and almost did not react as fast enough. the golden can be a bit of a "toy hog" and i guess he had taken a few too many toys from max and one of them (it was too fast to see) snapped and thank god there was no fight but got me thinking since this was the goldens turf and their toys, and their first time meeting, should they have met on neutral ground? Should dogs always introduced in a neutral setting ? The rest of the day the older golden did great with max but the younger one kept trying to put max in check and the older golden could care less, and when max and the younger one were together the golden would growl and finally at the end of the day max took a a toy to the back of the yard to play and the young golden tried to take it and max went off and the golden ran away. is this jousting for postion and a normal thing or something else. It was also a shock considering how placid and calm max is all of the time, I have never , ever seen him growl at anything, so it was a crazy moment.

Jewlieee

Posted : 11/23/2007 7:34:24 PM

It's always a good idea to introduce dogs outside of their home and yard. The best dog can still be guardy of its home. Neiko is this way, I'm finding out. When new dogs come over all toys and bones get put away for a while until everyone is comfortable. Once toys do come out, if any toy becomes high valued by 1 or 2 dogs then that toy gets put away.

In your case, you probably should have put all of the toys away until they settled down. And yes, part of that sounded like they were jockying for position which is normal but when that stuff goes on its best to put high valued items away so they don't instigate fights.

Janet808

Posted : 11/26/2007 9:12:39 PM

When we go down to the boat, we don't even take any toys for Misty because of the other dogs. First of all, they already ruined one of her favorite dollar store hotdogs, chewed it to shreds, so we don't do any toys in hopes that this will eleviate any of the dogs getting hornery. Also, there's a new rule, no feeding the dogs (especially from our plates, or human food). There was a fight that broke out between two of the dogs over food, so now that's a "no no". There are plenty of sticks, so they can have those and that's it. Now, we've never taken Misty to anyones house who has a dog, but my brother did during the summer and my sister's dog and his dog got into it. They're both big dogs (mutts) and it was scary! Not even sure what they were fighting about...but I don't think my brother will be bringing his dog down there again. Save the peace, ya know!

Bordercolliemom

Posted : 11/26/2007 9:45:03 PM

I'm already getting myself mentally ready for Christmas---my parents have a 2 yr old min poodle-great dog, but an Alpha---we bought him for my parents and I thank God everyday we did, as he has added years on to my dad (he has Cancer). Anyway, we watched him last Oct for 10 days and had NO problems, then at Christmas he and my Skylar got in to it--I made the mistake of putting their christmas bags under the tree,(they get alot) Skylar went over to smell and Angel (my parents dog) ran over to him and mounted skylar's shoulders and would not back down, skylar was cornered and came out fighting. Skylar tries to get away but Angel is persistant and Skylar doesn't know what to do--he's fine with other dogs. It was scary! We have found that if Angel does not corner Skylar everythng is fine. My brother is bringing his new 10 month old Lab/doodle up (New dog into our pack) ! I always take all dog toys/treats off the floor.

The game plan is to have EVERYTHING done before everyone arrives Christmas eve and introduce the dogs, etc----- I must add that everyone spends the night! Thank heavens for a big yard and house!!! It's tough because they feel our stress over the holidays--so we made a pact to be less stressful this year:):)