Hello everyone. I have a 3 yr. old male yorki who'se name is Skippy. In the last few months he's taken to visciously attacking the other male dog in our house.
Let me give a little history before i get into it so that you'll will be able to help a bit more. Skippy was our first inside dog. We got him when he was a baby and he's always been very hard to deal with. His father was the same way, virtually untrainable. Anyway, our second dog was a poodle. Her name is Lilly, we got her when Skippy was probably 6mo. to a yr. or so. They get along fine and always have. Well, eventually they had puppies, two dogs one female and one male. The male is Winky (We named him that because he was born with a floating eye. He only has the one eye. and he always looks like he's winking at you.) and the female is Little Girl (she's so very little and cute
) We had the poodle fixed so no more puppies there.
Skippy really didn't like being around the puppies alot, they kinda made him nervious and he's such a worry wort, he gets upset real easily. The slightest of sounds will set him off at times.
So as time went on, We kept all of the dogs, the two boys sleep with me in my room and the two girls with my mom in hers. They've always gotten along pretty well, they even played with each other all of the time. Skippy, the yorki naturally is the alpha male, the other little male Winky has always been kinda scared, he always cowered down to Skippy and people at times even though nobody's ever been mean to him, that's just the way he is. Sometimes Skippy would get mad at him but all he ever did was just kinda grow and kinda snap at him, but not really try to bite him or nothing, he was just letting him know he's cranky, like at night, he hates to be touched while he's sleeping and has even grunted at me for touching him.
That was all fine until a few months ago, Me and the two boys were in bed and Skippy kept eyeing Winky really weird like. His eyes were just wide as can be and he kept following where Winky was going with his eyes. I knew something was wrong then. And then all of a sudden, he just jumped on him and started fighting. I broke them apart and it's been happening ever since. Nothing noticeable happened to start this that I can recall, he just did it one night. It's gotten so bad that if they even get near each other he attacks the other dog. Winky is now so afraid of him that if Skippy even looks at him, he starts growling which causes Skippy to attack Winky yet again.
I don't know what to do. I have little cages that I've put him in every time he fights, but it doesn't help, If I put Winky in a cage to protect him from Skippy then Skippy goes up and attacks the cage. I've been bitten quite a few times breaking them up and I'm getting tired of it. I don't want to give any of them away, nor do i want to keep them in cages and seperated the rest of their lives, that's impossible.
I don't know what's causing this, the little yorki/poodle mix dog Little Girl has not been fixed yet, I wonder if that might be a part of it. We're going to fix her soon, she's just so small that it kinda worries me to fix her. But she definetly cannot have any babies with her sibling or father, that's way too close of inbreeding to allow.
Anyway, I've tried using water bottles to squirt at him when he starts attacking that sometimes helps but only after the attack. I cage him, i've tried putting him on a leash in here and i've tried leashing them both and keeping them close to each other but not close enough to bite.
I'm thinking about either getting them muzzles and hoping that will break them of this. Or i may buy one of those sonic dog trainers that I can put on his leash that emits a loud frequency when I push a button. Or I can get him some kind of sedative to calm him down. I don't know what to do. If you'll think any of these ideas will help let me know or if you'll have any other ideas then please help. It's hard living with them like this and I hate the fact that my sweet boy is being viscious towards my other sweet dog. Maybe I should just get them all fixed. I don't know if that'll keep him from attacking the other one but if so then I sure might do it. I feel like such a bad parent to my dogs for letting this happen. I know i've been a bit lazy on the training I just hope I haven't waited too late in their live's to correct anything. I wonder if obedient school would help any? I just feel horrible. Let me know what you'll think. Thank you.
