[sanjjuro]

Hello
We are having a huge problem with our youngest Ellie, who lives with her mum Daisy and dad Louis. Please see story below.
Would you have any suggestions, have you come across this problem before?
Help?
Lol
Everything has been fine with our happy little family until just before new year when Ellie came into season (her 4th) after a gap of 11 months. Her first 3 came all within less than a year so she was given a suppressant injection to try to sort her out, so don't know whether this has resulted in a massive hormone surge?? Anyway, everything was hunkydory during December when Daisy was in season and over Christmas they were all playing and bouncing round in usual fashion and then WHAM!! D & E suddenly had one almighty dust up over a bone and we realised that Ellie was in season. On that occasion Daisy floored Ellie and held her there but unfortunately instead of accepting it Ellie charged in for a 2nd go. For about a week we could just about keep them together as long as we could spot trouble brewing but after that it reached the stage that Ellie couldn't stand the sight of Daisy and would even fly at the window if she could see her. At first Daisy seemed to go out of her way to avoid confrontation and even went off her food for 5 days and seemed so depressed that we took her to the vets. But now I think that she's so pissed off with little bolshy-knickers that she she retaliates straightaway. We've now got to the stage that we haven't had them in the same room together for nearly 3 weeks! We had a 'dog whisperer' person round then who after sitting here for nearly two hours meeting them all individually (and telling us mainly what we already knew) decided to try to introduce them together on leads and all hell broke loose!! The only thing she kept harping on about was about getting the dogs to understand that WE are the pack leaders, but to be honest this is not an area where we have a problem. They ALL do exactly what we say and seem to know where they stand. Neither of us have any trouble with them being aggressive and they both absolutely adore Louis (poor Sod)... Just can't stand the sight of each other.
I would do anything to try to get them back to the way they were as I just can't contemplate the prospect of having to get rid of Ellie... as you can imagine, she has always been very special to me and I've had such a good time with her at shows where she has been really well-behaved, although I must admit that given the choice she does appear to prefer the boys rather than girls! We have tried making seeing Daisy a really positive experience by getting her to associate her with getting her meals and treats and for one day it seemed to work in that we could feed them treats with a fence between them but only inches apart and then without reason they blew up later. The open plan stairs seem to be a control point where Ellie lunges at Daisy if she tries to go up (not us or Louis!) so we have now screened them off.
I am absolutely desperate to cure this as they have been so fantastic together up until now but these last 5 weeks have driven me mad. I can't stand living in a war zone and beside that I'm running out of Kleenex...
Thank you in anticipation
John

[RubyPitbull]

John, as long as you have two breeding females in the household with one eligible male, you are going to have problems. They both sound like alpha females. It appears from your post that you are in the UK and your dogs are show dogs? I know this is not something you want to hear but I am going to put it out there anyway. Did your vet or the "dog whisperer" mentioning anything about spaying one or both of your females? As you have experienced, the hormone surge from an intact dog can makes them very nutty and aggressive. Spaying (as well as neutering males) usually helps reduce the aggressive behavior. It takes a couple of months after surgery for the hormones to drop to normal levels. I am sure this won't be an easy decision but if you want to keep both females, this really is your only option outside of rehousing one of them (selling or giving her to a responsible person).

If you are absolutely dead set against what I have suggested, you could try one more thing, although I don't think it will have any effect on their interaction with each other. It will just make it easier for you to control the dogs when you are around them. Regarding leadership, here is a link that I like to use that should help you figure out if you are doing what you need to do to maintain complete control of your pack and to reinforce your position as top dog. Check through it. If you aren't doing one or some of those things, I strongly urge you to put the advice given in action. Give it a month or so and see if changing how you approach your dogs has any effect on their behavior. Establishing and Keeping Alpha Position, Letting your dog know you are the boss