ARGH! Bully Sticks are making them FIGHT! Real Blood!!!! I need suggestions!
 

Man oh man. I decided to give all the girls bully sticks tonight for being so good today while we had company to give them a little treat. BIG mistake.

Geesh, 1st Molly and Zoey (Adult Chi) got into a HUGE fight. A SERIOUS one.

At first I just stood there, for a second, waiting for it to stop because they always just snap at one another and then thats it. Well this was different. They Didn't stop!!!!!

I got them apart and first thing I notice is Zoey's eye is filling with blood! :( I run upstairs and run to the sink and grap the sink hose thingy and spray cool water in her eye (I didn't know what to do!!!!!) But it worked cuz it cleared the blood for me to finally see her eye is ok, but it she tore her eye lid :(

Then not 2 minutes ago. Molly, yes MOLLY again....and this time Tia (baby Chi) had Molly pinned down in their bed biting the living CRAP out of her!!! :eek: I broke that apart (Tia is still hiding - her feelings get hurt when scolded) and now everything is quiet.

Dang - I don't want to have to keep them seperated in their bedroom :( But what if something like this happened while I was at work??? Seriously the way they were fighting , someone could be killed :( :(

ARGH this breaks my heart seeing them do this!!!!!

Any suggestions???

Well, honey, you know the answer to this one. Don't give them (any of them) bully sticks. Period. Some dogs just can't handle those very high value treats so they just don't get them. Like my Molly. I'd love to give her one of those, but she can't handle it. The only time she got one was when the other dog was away.
Kathy

The second they start to fight take the bully sticks away and they will learn they dont get them if they fight!

As others have suggested, just cut them out entirely. Or when you do give them out, put them each in a seperate room and close the door until they are done. Lets say if they are not all done by a certain time, just take it away and save it for another time.

I just had a brief spat with Baby and Rocky, Baby had the bully stick and Rocky wanted it. I buy the 12" stick and cut them down to make 3 of them, this way all 3 of them have 1. It seems though when one has 1, then they want the 1 that the other has!

If I raise my voice to where they know I mean business, then they stop! I had Baby climb in her chair for a brief time out, she is sitting next to me and now everything is fine.

I don't give them the sticks when I'm not around to supervise them!

I never ever leave any treats or "trigger toys" with them while I'm not home to watch them like a hawk.

Mine haven't gotten into fights, but they will snap at each other and the minute they do, their treat is gone and they're in the crate alone for a few minutes.

Up till now it hasn't been an issue and I never leave them alone with bully sticks. I know better than that!

I meant if they are fighting now, what if they fought when I wasn't home - over nothing. I don't want to take a chance.

I'm thinking of dividing the room in half. I hate to do it, but it seems theres a war going on between the Chi's and yorks.

:goodpost: That's the same way I react when I have Koda's friends over and they start to act up

I don't think they will learn to get along ever while they have bullysticks. The thing is they get really aggressive and possesive of them and will do anything so the other doesn't steal theirs. I had the same problem with mine. I had these things, sorta like bully sticks, they were pork skin twisties and London would fight with Teddy to steal it from him. Even if i gave them each one they would want each others and if Teddy has one and i try to take it away from him he kinda gets aggressive and puts his hands int he way so i won't grab it. I also used to have a dog Charlie that would get aggessive with treats like that so my advice would be just not to give them, and def. not when you're not around because if they fight when you're not there over them it can turn deadly. I had to seperate Teddy and London when they were fighting, but if i weren't there they would have really hurt each other, i know it and it was over that treat.

I don't mean to make light of your problem but I had to smile at this one....I pictured your yorks wearing gang colors and the chi's swinging chains and pulling switch blades.

My two tended to scuffle with the bully sticks in the beginning, I ended up buy extra sticks and putting them all down on the floor at once, so even if Tia wanted two sticks there was still two more sticks still down on the floor.I should add that I buy the large bullys (12 inches) and I supervise them while they have them. If one of the dogs tries to start a scuffle I step in and assert myself as the pack leader.They are quite well behaved now but they still get watched ;)
Eileen

Okay, I don't want to make light of it at all!! BUT I nearly spit my diet coke out at the mental image you just gave me!! Hilarious.

Now that I'm back under control.... I, too, never leave anything like that unsupervised. As the ends get mushy, dogs can tend to try to swallow the soft part while chewing on the harder part. My Shi Tzu years ago, when we used rawhide, was choking a bit and I pulled a 3 inch piece out of his mouth and pulled about 6 inches of soft rawhide back out of his throat!! :eek: Please be careful with any kind of chewable treats. Mine will spat over them. But any spatting gets a water spray. Even play fighting with barking gets a spray. They can wrestle and slobber all they want, but there is no barking allowed and they know that!

For my Coby, thats exactly what Tia my s**tzu cross does ,She has chocked on rawhide chews doing that very thing.Has scared the pants off of me a few times when I found how much was down her throat! Needless to say the dogs dont get rawhide chews any more .
Eileen