Sudden aggression- HELP!!!
 

My neighbor is having some serious issues all of a sudden with her two females. One of them is Abby- an 8# Shorkie, age 7 (my Blazer's mom) and the other is Saddie- a 6# Yorkie, age 6. Starting yesterday afternoon, for no apparent reason, they started fighting with each other- no blood has been drawn yet, but they have bruises and have really gotten some strong bites in. These dogs have lived together for the majority of their lives (since puppyhood) and never really had a problem. The smaller dog has always been the more dominant of the two but now it almost seems as if the larger, older girl wants to be Alpha. She even snapped at my 58# German Shorthair Pointer! (Who, by the way, just looked at her as if she was crazy.) Apparently my neighbor can't leave the two dogs alone together at all anymore, they circle each other and then attack! They have each been the instigators of these fights, too- it isn't just one going after the other.
I'm at a total loss as to what to tell her about how she can fix the problem. She will be calling the vet tomorrow to see if there could be a medical answer but I thought I'd ask you brilliant people, who seem to have seen it all! Please, HELP!!!!!!!

Here is something I read a while back and found very credible and consistent with my experience of working with dogs of all types and breeds in rescue.

Dog play behavior and "predatory drift" | Gail Fisher, All Dogs Gym & Inn | Dog, Dogs,

If I were your neighbor, I would get the Alpha wannabe girl busy at one of the free Nothing In Life Is Free programs from the many on the Internet and properly desensitize her to having the other dog around playing and living its life by reshaping her behavior using a good obedience training program 5 mins. 3 times daily and desensitization training. Learning how to control her own impulses and respond to your neighbor better, looking to your neighbor as her pack leader and the desensitization training together should all together help bring the new alpha wannabe around.

Wow, great article Jeanie!

It is a great article. If you've ever had several big, powerful dogs getting into predatory drift, you learn how to anticipate it and stop it before it ever gets started as three big GSD's all going at each other is no fun to try to stop! But you are the only one to stop it so learning dog body language and how to anticipate what leads to predatory drift saves all of this and before long, the dogs learn that they are going to be stopped and learn to control themselves.

I think that is so funny how they would rather control themselves than have you step in and bring it to a screeching halt! Why do they care about our stopping them and work hard to control their own behavior once they know we are going to step in? That always amazes me about dogs that they prefer to control themselves than be corrected by a persistent human! It tell me they are genetically programmed to understand and defer to hierarchy, just as most people are.

Thank you for sharing the article. Knowledge is power! I know the dog play group we to to has separate playdate/group for small, medium and large dogs. We go to the small with our Biewers, which is the only choice we have which is fine. Usually there is 3 staff and all the owners of the pets present.