How to Stop a Dog Fight
Never use your body to stop a fight! When dogs are fighting, instinct and drive have taken over. You can be easily bitten if you try to pull two dogs apart or separate them with your body. Never kick at a dog because their common reaction may be to turn and bite your foot.
It is understandable that your reaction would be to stop the fight by doing whatever it takes. However, physically intervening in a dog fight puts you at risk for getting bitten. Dog bites can result in legal action as well as the costs associated with treating a bite wound at a human ER or urgent care clinic. Complications from bite wounds can lead to severe pain and infection and permanent tissue damage, sometimes even requiring plastic surgery.
Instead of using your body to stop the fight, use a broom or chair or spray water on the dogs with a water hose to separate the dogs and stop the fight. Try making a loud noise such as slamming a door. However, don’t yell at the dogs; your excitement can add to the dogs’ excitement and escalate the fight. After the dogs are separated, keep them separate for several hours in different rooms and always seek veterinary care.
Why Are My Female Dogs Suddenly Fighting?
The issue you are seeing is a very common one and unfortunately very difficult to manage. Countless households like yours with two female dogs living together see them get along very well until one or both hits social maturity.
Social maturity in dogs is generally reached between the ages of 12 to 36 months, according to the Merk Veterinary Manual.
The hormonal changes during heat cycles and pregnancy can exacerbate things, potentially causing very heated fights even between docile females.
However, such fights may well endure months after heat/pregnancy because they may be competing over rank and breeding rights, especially if a breeding male lives in the same household.
In nature, two females so close in age would not live in such close proximity. Because of this unnatural setting (forced domestic “pack”), you are likely seeing the consequences.
In nature, only one female would breed with the male, and the other would either respect those breeding rights or would leave the pack to breed with another male. According to Gail Fisher, a dog trainer and breeder with over 40 years of experience, “A pack with several adult males and females of the same age would rarely, if ever, be found in the wild.”
This is further confirmed by the Merk Veterinary Manual: “At social maturity, in free-ranging packs, dogs that challenge the established social hierarchy may leave and form their own groups if they do not succeed in altering the extant social order.
This situation may be analogous to one form of inter-dog aggression that occurs in multiple-dog households.
Social maturity is also the time during which problem aggressions and anxieties develop. In multi-dog groups, the highest-ranking animals may be the only ones to breed.”
While dogs are not wolves, we cannot ignore that they share the same chromosomes and that dogs also tend to form social groups.
It is wrong to assume that dogs no longer have rank drive because they are domesticated. According to dog trainer and owner of Peaceable Paw, Pat Miller, “Social hierarchies do exist in groups of domesticated dogs and in many other species, including humans, and hierarchy can be fluid.”
What do dogs most often fight for? Well, we mentioned rank drive, but there are particular triggers that can cause a fight to erupt, such as:
While there is rank drive among dogs, dogs know well we are not dogs and that we ultimately control resources. The dominance myth is hard to debunk: dogs are not trying to climb all over us to assert dominance (as some television shows portray). Rather, they are just opportunist beings that have not been taught better ways.
Key takeaway Dogs can fight for a variety of reasons, including anxiety and playful fighting, or because they’re protecting something or resource guarding. Knowing your dog’s body language can help you prevent fights, but you must also know how to stop dogs from fighting once it’s already started.
Dogs fight for a variety of reasons, including play fighting, guarding, anxiety, and behavioral problems. While it may seem like your dogs are fighting just to fight, they can be fighting over just about anything. Dogs have sharp teeth and claws, which means they can injure themselves and anyone who tries to break up the fights. As a pet parent, you need to understand why dogs fight, determine ways you can prevent dog fights, and learn how to stop dogs from fighting once it happens.
Dogs may be fighting for several reasons, including:
Resource guarding is fairly common in dogs who haven’t been properly socialized. Additionally, it can be a symptom of underlying anxiety that many dogs from shelters have due to being forced to compete with other dogs for their toys and treats. Resource guarding is typically accompanied by growling, stiff body language, barking, and even snapping or biting.
If your dog gets into a fight with another dog, even another household dog, they could be doing it to protect you. When another dog gets too close to you, your dog may become anxious or aggressive and start lunging, barking, or trying to bite the other dog. As a result, the other dog might feel threatened and choose to fight back.
Dogs may become aggressive when they are frustrated. For example, if they are digging and another dog starts digging in the same spot, a dog can become frustrated and snap at the other dog.
Anxiety is a common issue in dogs that can lead to other behavioral problems, such as fear-based reactivity and aggression towards other dogs. In the case of anxiety, a dog might bark and lunge at another dog when they’re afraid. Remember, anxiety sparks the flight or fight response, and some dogs will have the fight response instead of cowering when they’re afraid. Confrontational gestures, such as barking, lunging, and showing teeth, can signal to another dog that your dog is being threatening, which can start a dog fight.
As we’ve mentioned, behavioral issues are common in dogs, especially those that have not been properly socialized. Many behavioral problems are simply symptoms of anxiety and fear, so instead of calling dogs who are acting out of fear aggressive, they are called reactive because they are reacting to something that has made them afraid.
Dogs with painful medical issues may bite their owners or other dogs who come too close because they don’t want to be put in more pain. If one dog is simply protecting itself, another dog may see it as a threat and start a fight.
Many of the reasons why dogs fight comes down to socialization and training. If your dog has been properly socialized, they know how to react to other dogs in their environment. Socialized dogs are typically more friendly and don’t become reactive or aggressive towards other dogs. Additionally, some dogs can benefit from behavioral training, especially if they have fear or anxiety, which might cause reactivity.
As a human, it can be difficult to tell whether dogs are playing or fighting because dogs typically use their mouths and paws to play with one another. You can look at a dog’s body language to determine when a situation is either playful or aggressive.
Play body language will look like the following:
How to Prevent Fights Between Sibling Female Dogs
Aggression between females is an unfortunately common behavioral issue faced by countless dog owners. Households with more than one adult female dog often struggle with conflicting personalities that lead to dangerous fights.
While every situation and every dog is different, aggression between female dogs has been linked to a few key causes. Living with a pair of feisty females disrupts the entire household, but continuous fights don’t have to be your everyday reality. Before you can solve the problem, you need to identify it. Here are a few possible reasons why your female dog doesn’t like other female dogs.
Dogs are pack animals, and while your domesticated dog is a far cry from being a wolf, those wolf-life instincts often kick in. Dogs that live in the same home are part of a pack, and like any pack, there’s a ranking system. Someone has to be the alpha, and everyone else is a subordinate. The humans of the pack may be the ultimate alphas, but dogs compete with each other for their positions within the family.
If you pay attention to your dogs’ behavior, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out who that leader is. Look at which dog walks through doorways first, gets first pick at toys, and takes the best sleeping spot. Subordinate dogs are usually content to stay in their place, but as pack members age, ranks can change. A younger dog may start to sense the older alpha weakening and feel confident enough to take them on. At the same time, an older dog may feel an extra impulse to defend her position.
Most female dogs reach sexual maturity between 12 and 36 months old. Heat cycles and pregnancy can affect hormones and cause confrontation even in dogs that previously got along. If your two female dogs used to be the best of friends but are suddenly snarling and snapping at each other, hormones may be to blame.
This issue can be especially heightened if there is an intact male dog also living in the home. Your female dogs could be fighting over their right to breed with the male, and that competition can be dangerous. If your female dog is showing aggression toward females she meets at the park or on walks, the same issue could be to blame. Females can instantly recognize a possible threat to their position or rights and feel the need to defend themselves.
Whether your two resident dogs are fighting or you have a female that lashes out at female dogs she doesn’t live with, your first step should be to talk to an animal behaviorist. A professional will evaluate your dog’s behavior and determine exactly what’s causing her aggression. From there, they’ll suggest a plan based on your dog’s specific personality. They may recommend exercising the dogs separately to release pent up energy and frustration or removing items (like toys and bones) that frequently cause quarrels.
It’s always better to prevent a fight than stop it mid-lunge, and a behaviorist will teach you to identify signs of impending confrontation. Intense staring and resource guarding are examples of unwanted behavior. Rehoming one of your resident dogs is an extreme solution, and your goal is to find a way to keep your family together.
It will take determination and patience, but it is possible to guide your dog toward a more peaceful relationship with other females. It may require separating the animals for part of the day and supervising their interactions at all times, but if you make it a priority, progress is possible.