My dogs attacked each other yesterday, why?
Okay so, I have two Schnoodles (half schnauzer, half poodle.) They are VERY VERY friendly and neither of them have ever snapped at anyone or anything. But yesterday at my family’s Christmas party, my grandma gave them each rawhide “shoes”, as she always does when she comes over. Two times throughout the night, I had to literally pull them apart because the youngest one went to go attack the older one. At first I thought it was because one had stolen the others’ rawhide but as it turns out, both “shoes” were on the opposite side of the room. So what all of the sudden made my younger dog attack the other one? Now when I say attack I mean a ferocious, all-out dog fight, they definitely weren’t playing.
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9 Answers
They were probably stressed. They were not in their normal surroundings.
Usually docile dogs getting uppity generally means something changed in the house, which means the family Christmas may have freaked them out, or at least the young one who has less experience, so he chose to pick on the old dog. If this is the case, maybe it’s better to keep the dogs from the ‘family’ events in future, for their sake.
It’s quite strange but a friend of mine also has issues with her dogs, when she buys rawhide. She has 7 dogs and during one fight she got bitten. It’s possibly the change at home coupled with the rawhide. I guess dogs really love it, its odd.
My dogs get crazy when I have raw hide or bully sticks in the house. I just stopped buying them because it made them mean to each other.
Are either one or both of your dogs young or new to the house?
If they have lived together for awhile it’s just what they do they are like siblings and sometimes the playfights escalate, I also have 2 dogs & sometimes I have to get in the middle and tell them in a loud voice that that’s enough & go lay down in their beds.
I personally think it’s just a release of energy from being excited. If there was no blood or cuts then it was not as ferocious as you think it was.
Next time this happens you just need to make sure you reinforce what your play boundary for them is. You sometimes have to be a referee of sorts. Good luck.
@NostalgicChills Your welcome :) I’m glad I could help. I have had both my dogs since they were puppies and they are 8 & 9 now and one thing I’ve learned over all these years is that I’m the one who needs to teach them their manners. Sometimes fights will even escalate because one dog wants to play and the other doesn’t so the fight could be because of that, they really are correcting each other. Which I have found that in these cases the human neefs to take care of it.
My one dog has anxiety with high emotions and can alert me to any “unbalanced” dog or human and if I do not set a dog straight she barks at the “unbalanced” dog. Humans she will almost sit on them to try to calm them down if I don’t calm them down first, along with panting and shaking.
So if I don’t take care of it first they do it themselves.
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