[Lucas]

Ok, so I'm new here and I have 3 dogs, 2 Lab/chow mix (Sam and Lila) and 1 German Shepherd/Husky mix named Symon. Symon is 2 and Sam is arond 7 or 8, Lila is in between somewhere. We got Symon Wedensday and He was fine wit Sam and Lila. Thursday, however was a differnt story. Thursday He went after her and fought with her. All she did was sniff him. He knows better than to try that with Sam as Sam is twice his size. He trys to fight with Lila when ever she gets close. He will also bark constantly if we play with Sam and Lila and not him. We can't even go near the other dogs without him barking loudly. Symon is an indoor-outdoor pup and will bark if left out alone. The only time he shos any aggression with us is when we play rough but other than that he's harmless. Never broke the skin. We also have cats but he shows about as much interest in them as a bird to a rock. What can we do to ge them to stop?

My guess is that he dosn't understand that she is the dominent one. We have ben told to put a muzzel on him and let them work it out while keeping them both on a leash

[Todd]

Could be fighting over dominance because of similar sizes. Have the dogs been fixed? If not def. do that for it should clear up a lot. In addition you should firmly tell him "no" when he acts up and put him on lead and remove him from the situation. You want him to associate being agressive with being taken away from the fun if you will. Try these tactics and see what works.

[shandwill]

Don't know if you're still having problems, but...
How did you introduce the new dog to your other dogs? In my experience, having introductions occur in a neutral setting, rather than where one of the dog's perceives as his territory, makes things go much more smoothly. For example, we brought our existing dog out to the sidewalk to meet our new dog and immediately took them for a walk together. By the time we got back to the house, they had gotten use to one another a bit and were too tired to care about fussing.
Within reason, I would let the dogs work things out amongst themselves. A new dog coming into a preexisting "pack" is going to push the envelope a bit to see where he/she stands in the pecking order. Quickly enough, the alpha will rise to the top and put everyone else in their place. As for putting them on a leash, I find that drastically changes the energy and body language of the dogs making it more difficult to communicate effectively and accurately with one another. So, to reiterate, I would put them in a large space together (fenced backyard for instance) and allow them to sort things out.

[german sheep]

I would first like to ask you: Why is it that more often there are conflicts and fights between animals within our own pack situation? What happens in the wild when an alien dog encounters a already structured pack? With whom does the dog live in the first instance and what do you expect from your dogs?

We humans are the source of problem behaviour in dogs. We must realise that there are two structures in such situations: Man/Dog and Dog/Dog. Unconsiously we force a conflict on the animals because we never treat each dog the same. Without thinking we tend to prefer one dog to another, wether it is not correct from the other dog's point of view regarding the already existing structure within their generic group.

We leave resources to their own devices with the result that they become more and more important for each dog and under specific circumstances the dogs will protect these things among themselves.

Let me return to the comment about what happens, when an alien dog meets an already established pack: One of two procedures can occur
1) the individual could be killed, because it is a danger for the existing pack
2) it could turn and escape and live another day

If we consider this through our own eyes, we would see what we expect from our dogs, the possibility to flee for the second dog is not available...

LG
gs

[Lara's mom]

I just had to rehome my 9 month old Jack Russell for the same reason. I hope you have more success than I did. I tried everything. He is now in a home with a lovely couple where he is the only dog in the house. It broke my heart but in the end, it was the best possible solution for all of us.