So Your Dogs Are Fighting Each Other. What Now?
One of the toughest problems we help people resolve with their animals is interdog aggression, where dogs who live together are fighting each other. And one of the hardest things about this, is it can be hard to find good advice. There is so much misinformation about the social relationships between dogs that many people do not seek help until their dogs are injuring each other, incorrectly chalking up verbal or physical altercations between their beloved dogs to “pack dynamics” or “asserting dominance.”(1) Let me tell you, friends, the vast majority of disputes between dogs do not result in injuries. If your dogs are injuring each other, even slightly, please seek professional help with a credentialed behavior consultant or trainer. (We know a good one).
Interdog aggression can be caused by a host of behavior disorders and is often triggered or made worse by physical ailments, things like pain or allergies, that can shorten a dog’s fuse. The future outlook for dogs who have fought to coexist with one another depends on a variety of factors, including how long they have been fighting, the extent of the injuries that have occurred, and the severity of any comorbid behavior or physical disorders your dogs may have. A good trainer should be able to give you an idea of what the future looks like for you and your dogs in that first meeting.
(1) See the AVSAB’s position statement on dominance for more information: CLICK HERE
here’s what to expect when you come to a pleasant dog for help with interdog aggression.
Expect a pretty long first session. In that first session together, we will meet with you and one of your dogs (so you can concentrate on telling their story, instead of managing them safely in a room). Your trainer will go through your history with each of your dogs, including taking a history of their relationship, fights, and triggers for fights. For each fight, the trainer will want to know: when it happened, who was there, and if anyone was injured, how badly.
You can look forward to a safety plan. Dog fights often result in injuries to the fighting parties and to the people separating them. A good trainer or behavior consultant will send you home with a safety plan in your first session to prevent fights from reoccurring. This often looks like absolute separation between the dogs in indoor spaces while we work on restoring their relationship. In most cases, your dogs will need to be physically separate until they are no longer targeting or threatening each other on opposite sides of a barrier in order to reestablish a good relationship. There are a lot of creative ways our trainers can help make this comfortable for you and your dogs. (Hint: we will teach your dog to be comfortable behind and not to jump a baby gate.)
Foundation training is important. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and interdog aggression is a marathon, not a sprint. We often are training for months to rewrite your dogs’ complicated feelings and history with each other. Foundational training will include counterconditioning for seeing or hearing each other, useful skills like a solid recall, and the ability to relax alone and around one another. These are skills that must be in place before reintroduction.
Expect a doctor’s visit. If injuries have occurred or if fights happen more than once every six months or so, medical treatment for physical ailments or anxiety is often necessary before reintroduction of your animals. You should expect your trainer to refer you to your vet to determine whether or not your dogs could benefit from behavior medicine or treatment for any underlying health disorders that could be triggering or worsening fights. Examples of medical conditions that can complicate interdog aggression include allergies, pain, and hypersensitivity hyperarousal syndrome. Again, it is not normal for social animals who live together to injure or repeatedly threaten each other.
We will help you know what to expect. Treating interdog aggression with therapeutic training almost always involves months and sometimes a year or more of careful counterconditioning to restore or establish a good relationship between the dogs. There are no quick fixes, and anyone who tells you they can fix interdog aggression with the push of a button may simply be kicking the can down the road. However, your trainer should be able to tell you how likely they think your particular dogs are to be successful and will help you to determine whether embarking on this journey is possible for you given the unique presentation and circumstances present in your family.
Good management will always be important. Even once we are successful, your dogs will always need you to help them when they are likely to have big feelings about things. Even dogs who haven’t fought should be safely managed and separated when there are triggers present, such as food, high value chew items, or triggers that previously caused them to fight.
We have a proven track record of success with interdog aggression at A Pleasant Dog. We love helping families struggling with interdog aggression and have helped restore peace to households where even veterinarians had recommended rehoming. We would love to help you and your dogs. We see clients both virtually and in person. To get started restoring harmony to your household, please call or visit us online today!
