Fighting females
 

I have three Yorkies. My husband has a morkie and a Havanese/Poodle mix. All five dogs have known each other and played together for years. Now we are married and have all five dogs living together under one roof. Two are females and three are male. Sadie, my Yorkie has been viciously attacking Bella the thirteen pound Morkie who is almost twice her size. Sadie will, without any warning, go after Bella's face, biting her and I have to separate them with great difficulty. I literally have to open Sadie's jaw to pull Bella's face out. Bella runs shaking under the table. It seems to be worse when people come over or if one of us is giving Bella attention. Bella is a very submissive and shy dog. These attacks are happening with greater frequency and I am concerned. Does anyone have any advice? Also Bella is a couple of years older than Sadie, not to mention much bigger, but clearly Sadie is trying to establish her Alpha lead.

are they both spayed? if not is one in heat?

Both are spayed. At times Sadie is fine with her, and then all of a sudden it's like a missile strike.

Over the years, I have had problems with female dogs in this manner. I believe these females are fighting over position in the pack (the whole family pack including humans). While one may be more submissive, the other sees her as a threat. The more submissive one likely does not start the fights, but she won't back down from one either, rather she will defend herself and her position in the pack. She likely will not win the fight either. These types of confrontations are very dangerous to you, and to the dogs as they will inflict injury to one another. They likely see you as the pack leader, (their source for basic needs..food...water) and these confrontations happen sponatneously when you enter the room, or are nearby, because they have an "order" in which they greet, or approach their leader, and when one breaks that order, stuff hits the fan! I have never had good luck with these situations other than seperating them when the aroma in the air is not right. If you watch them closely, you will start to see warning signs as to when a fight is about to break out. At that point, I seperate for a while. They have very specific body language that says they don't like what the other is doing. Can be a circling motion, hair standing up on their back, or even eye contact with one another. Others may have better ways of dealing with these situations, but spaying has never made a difference that I have noticed.

From what I have seen, unfortunately, most of it boils down to very close supervision and keeping them physically separated. If it were just bullying that would be one thing, but if she's actually locking her jaws on another dog's face, that's very serious. I hate to suggest this... but the dominant female might be happier rehomed to a family where she can be the only dog.

I have seen basic desensitization recommended. Bring the two dogs together, give them both hotdogs while they sit next together, praise them for good behavior, give a time out if one of them gets aggressive. The thing that would concern me is the suddenness and viciousness of the attacks. Like, maybe you can get them generally more comfortable around each other, but you will always have to be on alert when the two are around each other, and I personally would be concerned that one day I might not be fast enough to stop a real injury.

I think at the least you should get a good trainer to assess the situation.

Thank you for your responses. Tonight Sadie did it to Riley. He is our male Havanese/poodle mix. I came home from work and my husband had just picked up Sadie from the groomer. When Riley approached me, Sadie jumped in and attacked him in the face. Again holding onto him with her teeth. I am amazed that there has been no blood, thank God. It happens so quickly, no warning for me. I agree that it has something to do with being very possessive of her humans. She is so good in other ways, but I am thinking about rehoming her. I would be devastated to do that. First, I would try a trainer, but finances are tight right now. I am watching her very closely around the other dogs. I hate to admit it, but it was very relaxing to have her at the groomer, Bella was so happy.

so maybe its time for Sadie to know that her actions will not be accepted. Period. I would suggest you ignore Sadie all together. If she does something wrong, Yell really high pitched and crate her butt. Then ignore her. Make sure YOU are not confusing them about who is alpha dog. Always Feed, pet,hold, walk, dress, in the same order. Sadie last!

Does she urinate on the beds?

I would try some of these and see if after a few days she is any different. Good luck with the little PIT BULL! (Sorry I had to)

It's interesting you say that. Sadie has peed on the bed a few times, usually when we have doggie playdates and my sister brings over her King Charles Cavalier. The dogs go running all over and if I forget to shut my bedroom door, Sadie has been known to pee in my bed!! Don't feel bad about the reference; she is acting like a little pit bull. She is also doing that thing another poster mentioned where she will be sitting in my lap and will snap at one of the other dogs if they come over. I wonder if she would be better as an only dog. Is there such a thing as dog adolescence? Sadie will be two in March.

Your post reminds me of my Lola! I have two yorkies, one male and a female. My little female is 3.5 lbs and my male is about 9 lbs. My daughter is a fourth year med student and had to stay with us for 6 weeks with her two yorkies, both males - 5 lbs and 8 lbs. Anyway, when my daughter came for a short visit at Thanksgiving we introduced the 4 of them slowly and things went fine the first couple of days. Then out of the blue, my female attacked her male and latched on to his little ear and would not let go. It was horrible. After that, we could not even walk through the room with the male without my female "raging" at him, so we kept them separated. At Christmas we reintroduced them and it was a little better, she attacked him the last day they were here and it was pretty bad...I was worried because I knew she was coming back soon for a 6 week visit and I would have them during the day by myself! Lola has had a liver shunt repair and I thought maybe this had something to do with her liver enzymes being too high so I asked about it on my liver board. They said no, but it was suggested to me that when she started to growl or get that "look in her eye" that I pick her up, make eye contact with her and pull her chinny hairs and firmly tell her no, until she stopped. I tried this every time when my daughter returned with her dog. Lola seemed to tense up whenever he came close, so I had a little warning. This did seem to work. My daughter is leaving on Saturday and we've only had a couple of incidents of Lola "raging" since. Keep in mind though, Lola is the smallest at only 3.5 lbs and has tiny little teeth. If it had been the other way around, we would not have been able to let it go because someone would have gotten hurt. I know how hard this is...good luck.

Have you tried the SPCA for training? The SPCA in my area offers 6 week classes for $100. They also have information for what you are going through. They usually have a behaviour specialist on the staff to offer advice. Maggie used to do what your dog is doing, not as vicious but enough to hurt my other Yorkie who is much smaller. I was told she was a bully twice in one week (once by my vet and once by the behaviour specialist at the SPCA). After Maggie started training and learning some commands she is not nearly as aggressive as she was.