Aggression between dogs is not easy to deal with, especially if both dogs are dear to you. However, serious dog-to-dog aggression cannot be ignored, because if it’s left unchecked, it will almost always get worse.
The causes are complex and they’re not always the same. Maybe one dog wants to claim alpha rights and is trying to take over the pack by making your other dogs submit; maybe your dog is jealous and won’t let other dogs come near you; maybe your dog missed out on proper puppy socialization, and needed it more than the average puppy does. The possibilities go on and on.
Here, I’m going to talk about two main kinds of dog-to-dog aggression:
- You own two or more dogs, and they’re fighting each other.
- One of your dogs is aggressive toward other dogs when you’re walking them on a leash.
General Reasons for Dog-to-Dog Aggression
Please remember that dog-to-dog aggression is different from cases where a dog is aggressive towards humans or other kinds of animals. The “politics of the pack” between dogs create unique reasons for aggression. Some of those reasons are:
- Fear and Panic
- Urge for Dominance
- Trained or Learned Aggression
- Territoriality
- Protective Aggression
- Predator Instinct
- Sexual Aggression
If you think about each of the above cases and apply them to even a basic knowledge of how dog packs work, you can quickly see that any number of the above can come into play all at the same time.
As for why it continues happening in a family environment, it can be anything from a failure to provide socialization training, to a genetic factor. Perhaps your dog was attacked by a bigger dog as a puppy, perhaps a previous owner was abusive, perhaps a neighborhood dog is setting a bad example… the list could go on and on.
Dog-to-Dog Aggression Checklist
I’ve arranged this checklist in order of priority; start at the top, with the severe and potentially life-saving steps, and work your way down.
Things not to do:
- If you’ve been responding to your dog’s aggression through physical punishment or attempts to challenge the aggressive dog, stop. This is a huge safety risk for you, and all the dogs involved.
- If you’ve been trying to soothe your dog when they’re all fired up, don’t do that. That’s a reward. Only reward the right behaviors.
- If you’ve been ignoring the aggressive incidents, know this: none of the final outcomes of dog-to-dog aggression are pretty. At best, the victims can be psychologically harmed. Aside from that, ignoring the behavior is similar to rewarding it.
Things to do immediately:
- Take your dog to the veterinarian and make sure there’s no medical reason for the aggression. This is not a time where you want to make a layman’s judgment about your dog’s health.
- If the problem is severe enough that your dog is injuring other dogs, use a head collar and a muzzle to prevent that from continuing. This isn’t a solution, but it protects other dogs for now.
- Resume rigorous obedience training. Reestablish yourself as the fair and dominant figure.
- Order your dog to stop every time the aggression begins, as soon as it begins. Also make it extremely clear, every single time, that you strongly disapprove of dog-to-dog aggression.
Things to do on a case-by-case basis:
- If you and your veterinarian are baffled as to why the aggression is happening, or if you’re not confident you can handle the dog-to-dog aggression, seek the help of an experienced animal behaviorist. (This may be necessary in almost all cases.)
- If you have a strong alpha and trainer position with your dog, begin (or resume) socialization steps. Puppy socialization is very important for preventing aggression before it begins, but if you have enough control over your dog, beginning socialization now will be helpful in training against the aggression.
- Teach your dog to be less vicious through bite inhibition training.
Bear in mind that all dogs need puppy socialization, bite inhibition, and obedience training. This is true both with dogs that already have a dog-to-dog aggression problem, and with new puppies.
Dog-to-Dog Aggression Happening
With Dogs On Leash
This is fairly common with dogs that were raised as household pets. This is because it doesn’t take much psychological damage, or training mistakes, to bring out this kind of dog-to-dog aggression. Here are some training tips to reduce and prevent the problem:
- If your dog has injured another dog or come close to doing so, add a muzzle when taking your dog for a walk. It’s not a solution, but, during this new training process to remove the aggression, it will prevent incidents.
- Obedience training is your one-way ticket to solving any kind of behavior problem. Issue a command such as “down” or “stay” or both, which helps your dog understand your expectations. Issue the command the instant your dog starts an aggressive or uncertain posture.
- Reward your dog every time he does not react to other dogs aggressively. Keep treats in your pocket, or if your dog is restricted with a muzzle, simply praise him for sitting calmly.
- Don’t let your worries about aggression incidents, cause you to transmit feelings of anxiety to your dog whenever you see another dog. Your dog will misread this as a good reason to become aggressive. Remember that your dog can basically “read your mind” through your blood pressure, breathing, and body language.
- Also avoid tugging on the leash when you see another dog, because this will force your dog into what appears to be an aggressive posture.
- Toss a treat on the ground and tell your dog to find the treat. This will instantly distract many dogs, will break off confrontational eye contact between the dogs, and may completely change his mood. Make sure you don’t do this if your dog is considering an aggressive move.
- Show extreme approval whenever your dog is submissive or polite towards other dogs.
Dog-to-Dog Aggression at Home,
aka Sibling Rivalry
Remember what I said at the beginning of this article – behavior patterns between dogs in a pack are complex and, to their minds, somewhat private. As you’ll see below, some levels and causes for dog-to-dog aggression between littermates or household dogs are not as severe as they seem. However, you are the alpha leader, so you are the one who decides what is acceptable between pack members.
What are the Causes of Doggie Sibling Rivalry?
Without rewriting the book, I’ll go over the most common reasons why your dogs might fight amongst themselves:
- A teenage puppy is trying to assert himself, a new addition to the canine family is causing an uproar in the hierarchy, one of your dogs has become sexually active, or some other thing has caused changes in the pack’s sense of social status.
- Competition over toys, space, and people can cause animosity that leads to either isolated, or ongoing, cases of dog-to-dog aggression.
- One or more of the dogs was not given enough puppy socialization training. In particular, a dog might play too rough because they weren’t trained for bite inhibition.
- Rivalry is common whenever you have two dogs of the same gender and age living together.
- Here’s the real kicker: Sometimes humans interfere when it’s not warranted, forcing the dogs to repeatedly try and “work out their differences” between themselves. Honestly, if the aggression isn’t all that bad, letting them have one good fight may be the only solution.
How to Control
Dog-to-Dog Aggression Between Housemates
There aren’t many “general” statements I can make about this, except for one: You need to deal with the cause, not the symptoms. In some cases, they might be fighting because you’ve put both their beds too close together and they can’t have any privacy! In other cases they’re just being immature over a toy. In the first case, move both beds so that neither dog receives favoritism – you’re solving a problem that you caused, without making it worse. In the second case, take the toy away from them both – that’s a problem they caused, again, you’ve dealt with it without making it worse.
Aside from that:
- Make sure you are maintaining the alpha position in the pack through fair and effective obedience training practices.
- Give them enough exercise that their play time with each other doesn’t turn into war time due to having too much pent-up energy.
- Don’t be afraid of letting one of your dogs become the dominant member among the dogs. So long as they’re not interfering with your alpha position and they’re not injuring each other, this is normal. In fact, you need to respect this development by feeding that dog first, greeting them first when you come in the door, etc – to do otherwise is to risk a rematch.
Return to dog and puppy training, or the dog behavior problem section.