Originally Posted by luckylady  Well, for the most part they do, and they have, up until the last couple of weeks. Here's the deal:
We have 4 yorkies, two males and two females. The problem lies between Lexie & Halle, the two girls.
Lexie just turned 2 yrs old and was spayed earlier this year. Halle is just about to turn 9 months old, is not spayed (we'll be using her for breeding)and has not had her first heat yet. We got Halle in late March and she and Lexie have had no problems until recently. Nothing has changed in our lifestyle, or theirs, so I don't understand why this is happening now.
They have a love/hate relationship. We keep Halle & Toby in our bedroom whenever we are gone; Lexie & Lucky have the run of the house. When we come home and let them out, the first thing Halle does is go straight to Lexie, wanting to play, jumping in her face insistantly. It's partly a puppy thing I think, but again, Halle's not insistant on greeting Lucky. Lexie grumbles at this, but does not get aggressive. On the other side, I also notice that upon opening the bedroom door, Lexie seems to be looking for Halle (not Toby who is also coming out), and she also looks for Halle in other situations (going outside, one of them starts barking...), it's Halle that Lexie will look for right away; again, not aggressively, just seeming to need to know where she is or what she's doing. OR, if Halle & Toby are playing, Lexie has to get in there and either push herself in on it or break it up. Dominant behavior, I know.
Now the aggressive problem....Lexie has actually attacked Halle a few times. Each time it was at a moment when all the dogs were in an excitable situation; barking at something out the window, getting the leashes out for a walk, it's only when they are all overly excited about something. Lexie will go after Halle and has actually had a hold of her hard enough to make her cry.
So, we've been keeping a close eye on the two of them, correcting both Lexie when she gets to grumbley towards Halle, and Halle when she gets in Lexie's face to much. I am in the process of looking for/getting in touch with an animal behaviorist as I feel we need professional help. In the meantime, I thought I'd put it out here for some YT feedback. Am I doing the right things so far? Is there more or something different I should/can do to change this behavior before it gets any worse? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and a few YT prayers wouldn't hurt either.
I might understand it better if it had been this way from the beginning, but why, oh why, is it suddenly starting up now? It's gotta be a female thing I would think, since Lexie is fine with the boys and the boys are fine with both of the girls. Oh, and Halle has shown no aggression whatsoever towards Lexie. |