GSD issues

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Ernie2001

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Hello, hoping for some advice

We have a 2 year old German shepherd and a 5 year old lab, both male both neutered. We have recently been having issues with them fighting, trigger points seem to be at feeding time and walk time. At home they will sleep near enough on top of each other in the same bed no problem but any excitement i.e. Going for a walk they will wrestle and more recently fight. The gsd is a rescue and we know little about his puppyhood but don't think he got socialised very much. Ideally we don't want to rehome either as they are both much loved members of the family.

Any advice on what we can do to stop the fighting? Thanks
 
No excitement allowed! You control everything. If you are going for a walk they sit and stay untiul you are ready to leave, then one at a time you call them forward to and through the door. Food time, they both go to a spot and sit and wait while you get the food. It is all about you controlling any situation where excitement runs high.
To be on the safe side I would not leave them unattended together. Never leave toys/treats/food items or anything at all they may fancy a bit of with them. You control their whole environment.
Top dog/pack leader is frowned upon nowadays but to my mind you need to be in charge of them.
 
As others.

It doesn't matter if he is a rescue or if he was socialised to within an inch of his life, young GSDs can be rude and bolshy with other dogs and it's our job as owners to step in and tell them it's not acceptable before it escalates.
I would say he's getting to the age where his bits are dropping but let's just say he's pushing his luck ;)

As has been said, don't set them up to fail, control all movements, entry and exit points, meal times etc and agree I would be careful when they are alone.
Don't give them the benefit of the doubt, bootcamp is hard, but try to stick to it, it's better than rehoming or injury/big vets bill. This has taken a while to develop and could take a while to resolve too.

If you have to walk them separately for a while then so be it, it's a pain, but doable and will get them more focused on you rather than each other.
 
Is it definitely fighting? And not playfighting?
We have two rescues- both about 3, a lab and a collie. In the house they like yours sleep! But often in our garden they will play fight quite a lot, going for each other’s legs, bombing around, teeth showing sometimes. But it is in play and they both seem to initiate it.
But on walks they are far too busy sniffing and zooming.

My previous dog was a 2yo GSD rescue when we got him and he could be a pain with some dogs (and reactive to unknown dogs). We had to put him on lead around my friends spaniel because he would pester him constantly to get him to play. The spaniel would never tell him off to tell him to go away.
I assume this is your issue with the lab not telling the GSD to stop?

Probably just being a teenager who needs a firm word from you as your lab isn’t telling him that’s enough
 
Ernie2001 said:
Hello, hoping for some advice

We have a 2 year old German shepherd and a 5 year old lab, both male both neutered. We have recently been having issues with them fighting, trigger points seem to be at feeding time and walk time. At home they will sleep near enough on top of each other in the same bed no problem but any excitement i.e. Going for a walk they will wrestle and more recently fight. The gsd is a rescue and we know little about his puppyhood but don't think he got socialised very much. Ideally we don't want to rehome either as they are both much loved members of the family.

Any advice on what we can do to stop the fighting? Thanks
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Boys will be boys! You need to be firm when they overexcite themselves. Start teaching them manners. First sign of over-excitement implement the sit position & reward. You have two intelligent breeds, use that intelligence to your advantage🙂
 
Great advice already which I won’t add to, but just to say I had a similar issue with my two male shepherds when my younger boy was around a year old. The excitement of a walk triggered it and from then on I made sure neither were allowed to get overexcited, or to be bolshy with one another and thankfully, 7 years on they’ve never had another fight.
 
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