Bitten three times in 3 days!!

mattilda

mattilda

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Me and poor old Matty. We are living a nightmare at the moment. Sage my Rottie keeps attacking Matty, the RR. I dive in and get the odd tooth in me for my trouble! I feel like I am treading on eggshells to try and keep the piece. Pointless post just wanted to vent. AAARRRGGGHHH!!
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Matty (RR) is a 9 yo bitch, Sage (Rottie) is a 21/2 yo bitch and they are both spayed. I also have Sages brother who is 18 months old. They have been best pals until a couple of weeks ago and I am at my wits end. I have a dog behaviourist on the case but life is horrible foe us all at the moment. I love them all but if we can't solve the problem Sage will have to find a new home. It will break my heart.
 
I started doing that today and so far it's helping. But you have to be very wary round them and try to defuse situations before they start. It is exhausting quite frankly! However, I will do everything in my power to sort this out. Rehoming Sage is very much a last resort. It's a shame because all 3 are such sweet dogs with us.
 
Can you not keep them seperate? I had two dogs that fought constantly (injuring me twice in the process) and to avoid parting with either one of them I kept them apart, difficult at first but you soon get used to closing one door before opening another. I lost both dogs in old age but am repeating the process now as i dogsit my daughters Weim who doesn't get on with my Vizsla. Safety gates all over the house again!

Unfortunately it's not always easy to see what the cause of the fighting is - with mine I was the catalyst. As soon as I walked through the door they would start. They both had to be stitched up and I finished up in A&E so I decided if they couldn't live together they would have to live apart. In old age they eventually decided they could be friends.
 
We had a similar problem with two male dogs and our dog trainer suggested this which worked very well. As soon as one dog shows any unjustified aggression (i.e. is not responding to having its food taken or anything like that), take the aggressive dog, put it in a room on her own and leave her for a few minutes. If she barks pick a moment when she is quiet and let her out. Through-out the whole thing do not talk or make a big deal - the signal is "If you behave like that you are left on your own". If you can't touch her for fear of being bitten take everyone else (all dogs and humans) and leave her behind on her own in the room. Again release her after a few minutes. It took our dog three repetitions to figure out that if he was aggressive he was removed from 'the pack' which seemed to be a huge deal because he stopped immediately.

Good luck!
 
I'm sorry but if you can't touch the dog for fear of being bitten you've got bigger problems than you realise. You need to establish and consistently enforce some basic rules immediately or there could be a serious accident.
 
You have got 3 very powerful dogs and you need to be very careful that you don't get badly hurt. I don't see how you can control 3 dogs of that size, if they want to have a fight.

I had 5 whippet bitches. The No. 5 dog came into the group and decided at 1 year that she wanted to be the boss and I would come home to find the other dogs injured, they could not understand why Jet got so angry and why she actually bit them. Separating a small angry dog is one thing, and they never bit me, but at one point I considered having Jet PTS, because I believe that as an owner it is my responsibility to deal with an aggressive dog, rather than pass her on to someone else.

We dealt with it, by ignoring Jet and not letting difficult situations escalate. If a running game was going on, Jet was kept on the lead because she would turn it into a fight. etc. At the slightest sign of aggression a firm word would stop it. She got over it, but now she IS top dog because the others died off eventually.
 
VL and BB thanks for your suggestions I will try them both. Prepared to do anything right now to restore peace! Box of frogs and Tracey01 none of the dogs are aggressive to me or anyone else in the house. It's just Matty and they have lived together quite happily for 2 years. This has all started over the last 2 0r 3 weeks. I get bitten because I am splittling them up! They are all well behaved except for theses incidents and then it is just the bitches. The Ridgeback doesn't bite back at all. Will let you know how we are going....if we survive!!
 
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VL and BB thanks for your suggestions I will try them both. Prepared to do anything right now to restore peace! Box of frogs and Tracey01 none of the dogs are aggressive to me or anyone else in the house. It's just Matty and they have lived together quite happily for 2 years. This has all started over the last 2 0r 3 weeks. I get bitten because I am splittling them up! They are all well behaved except for theses incidents and then it is just the bitches. The Ridgeback doesn't bite back at all. Will let you know how we are going....if we survive!!

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You need to throw a jug of water over them, or a blanket. The worst thing you can do--especially with dogs that size--is to get in the middle of a fight.
 
Ditto the cold water - can the aggressor be muzzled? Please be careful.
We had to send an adult bitch back to the breeder for six months after she kept attacking our old girl.
Separation seemed to work for us but this sounds a bit more complex.
Might there be an underlying health problem?
 
It's difficult not to get in there but thanks for your concern. A lot of it kicks off in the house so maybe the blanket rather than the water! I muzzled Sage yesterday for about an hour but she stressed so much it was scary to watch. So far today I have diffused one possible incident so fingers crossed that will continue. Going to ride soon so one dog will go upstairs and the other can stay down here. Man life gets soooo complicated sometimes!
 
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