[Damaris]

Please help,

4 years ago I "adopted" 2 mini poodles. The are brother and sister I was told. The male is brown and is cross eyed and the female is white and has floating knee caps. They got along very well and were great with my kids. They didn't like my husband at first, but both dogs were heavily abused when we took them in. After working with them for a few weeks the male would come to my husband but the female wouldn't come out from behind the couch. We took her to my parents house. My parents have a cookapoo and a mini toy poodle. They took right to the new addition and my dad worked day in and day out with her. I brought my dog (the male brother) down every day to play with all the dogs in the fenced in back yard (it's big) And it's been great for 4 years. About 6 months ago the two females have started fighting really badly. The mini toy poodle passed away (she was over 16) but now the cookapoo and the two poodles fight constantly. If we stop them they will be fine for awhile then start in again. About a month ago the male started attacking the cats. We call the cat Satan because he is so mean, nothing messes with him and the cat is terrified of the male dog. Then last week we hired two new employee's (I work at my parents house). For no real reason we can see the first day the first guy can in for work my dog ran up and bite his leg. He didn't break the skin but was mean growling at him. I stop him told him NO and Sit. He was fine after that. Then last night he managed to get out of the back yard and Into the back of our other employee's truck. We the day was over he went to his truck placed the stuff in the back and had a dog leap at him biting him and he did break the skin. I really don't know what to do. If I leave him home during the day he will have to be in his kennel all day. But I don't know how to Stop him from bitting people. Please advise.

[badbarnkitty]

since the dogs' behavior all began changing after one of the dogs passed, id suggest looking into the wolf pack theroy a bit. the dogs fighting amongst themselves is their way of trying to establish a new "leader". the fact that they are trying to determine that amongst themselves means that they dont feel that any of the humans around are the "leader". if they had faith that you were their leader, they would be content to all be members of the pack, and would be confident that you are capable of protecting them and the home. the biting is probably half protective/half dominence. you should probably look into a refresher training class or probably a trainer that would work with you and your family in your home, and one that knows about the theroy. by going through obedience training and learnin more about their behavior, a dog starts to see you again as the "leader of the pack" much like puppies do. puppies run and play and typically could care less what we are doing (although they hate to be alone, mostly cause its boring), but as a dog grows up, they start developing behaviors that we think, "why didnt they ever do that as a puppy?" a lot of it has to do with them growing into the leader role, or head of the household. as a member of the pack, we can never have complete control of our pets because they dont respect us, they think of us like children that need protecting and babysitting. we see their insistance for attention and following at our feet as devotion and love, but really, it has to do with them demanding our attention when they want it, and not trusting us to be out of their sight.
even sometihng simple; first, pick the dog you feel is the most dominant of the dogs. then, at feeding time, feed that dog first (even if his bowl hits the ground only a half a second earlier than the others), then the other two in order of dominance. but, before you feed any of the dogs, eat a little bite of something (anything!) first, in front of them. the pack leader is always the first to eat, and this will help to reestablish who is who. i hope it helps; im not positive, but it feels like there is a power struggle going on in your home. i hope everything works out for all of you!