[nickielou]

hiya, im relatively new here but i have had dogs all my life, i grew up with isaac from when i was four
i sadly lost him when i was 17, and now im nearly 21 i missed the company, so bought myself two jack russells in january. we have a labrador at home already, she is four in august, and mine are 1 in the october, all three are bitches.
however, last sunday, for some reason, their hackles were up and they started to growl and then to fight. its been over a week now, and they still dont get on. we have to keep them in separate rooms, we have a room built specially for them and they have their own outdoor paddock, with good bedding out there, so they arent just 'shut out'. we just cant get them into the same room, or within distance of each other! they fight through the fence between paddock and back garden and through the glass window by the door to their own room. we phoned a behaviour specialist and vets and we have done everything they advised and still no difference, if anything got worse! we have tried: confirming the alpha status of the labrador, treating them all the same, treat based methods, walking in a field on lead getting closer, making a fuss of them in front of each other, words of encouragement, we have tried everything suggested!
any other ideas...???
i have asked friends of mine who breed and are vet nurses, and they said that if it continues, consider rehoming my jack russells
so any help would be appreciated!
thankyoooooooooooooou!
nickieloux

 

[rosemaryninja]

Mm. Bitchfights can be problematic once they've started.

Are the dogs spayed?

 

[nickielou]

no, not as of yet...
that was the next obstacle... it was planned to happen before the fighting actually. i did suggest this to the specialist, and she said that spaying may not really work, and it could make things worse considering that the fighting started pre-spaying and if after the spaying, if the fighting continues it could be worse as there would be no hormone 'back up' and would make them more nervous and argumentative. what do you think?

 

[rosemaryninja]

Strange... Personally, I've never heard of that. Hopefully someone else will come along and give their two cents.

 

[nickielou]

ok.... thankyou very much.
please, has anyone else got any suggestions or have experience with this kind of problem..?
muchly appreciated.

 

[Chels_girl]

I have two spayed females that often fight like this. It started when we had to put down our older male dog, who was very dominant of the girls. When he left things got really disrupted for them, as I had a new puppy too. So they started fighting, sinc eboth of my dogs are smaller I can easily seperate them, and then hold them apart till they calm down, it's better for them to do it together in the same room if you can manage them, it's a dominance thing I guess, since only a more dominant dog can seperate them.
I don't normally deal with the whole dominance sort of issues, but with my dogs that was exactly what it was. So in turn I did a really firm NILIF(there's a sticky in the training section on it). My girls would even fight when I walked one of them inside from an outdoor training session, so I worked them hard around the door. Walking in and out, getting the other dog to stay a decent ways away.

 

[cshellenberger]

Spaying will do VERY little for this, it's not about hormones, when two females fight it's for position and they will not stop without the intervention of a veterinary behaviorist (frankly even that may not fix it and you may have to re-home one). You may get them to tolerate each other, but you will NEVER be able to trust them alone with each other.

For now you are doing the right thing, you need to keep that separated, the more opportunity they have to practice their aggression with each other, the worse it will get.

I'd do a search for a behaviorist via www.iaabc.com or ask your vet about a veterinary behaviorist.