Bringing 2nd dog into home, do I let dominance issues work themselves out right away?
August 31, 2010 by admin
Filed under Infection Male Yeast
We have a 3 yo male malamute, hes fixed, hes dominant but not aggressive.
We decided to rescue a beautiful 4yo fixed female Malamute. We were told she was submissive by the rescuer,
SO its the first night in her new home, shes likely very stressed from the 12 hour drive, emergency trip to the vet this morning and groomers this afternoon (She has a severe ear infection with both bacteria and yeast! Shes got Staph infection on her skin, she’s underweight and she’s running a fever due to the infections!) We have started her on her meds but she’s definitely not healthy right now…
The new arrival, we have found, isnt so submissive after all. She’s not taking any of the male’s dominance manuvers (attempts to mount, mouthing ankles, chest to chest bumps, etc) She’s actually MOUNTED HIM back after he does it! She’s begun to actually initiate the dominance over him as of the last hour or so
My question is- Should we allow these attempts at dominance to go on right from day 1 or shall we keep things squashed until she’s healed up?
Any info would be greatly appreciated.–including info on how it went when you added a 2nd dog to your pack?
Thanks so much, we are stuck right now with how to proceed!
Our first dog was causing us problems, a 2 year old female mixed collie rescue dog. She was crying when she was left alone due to anxiety and separation issues and completely ruined our kitchen. We decided to buy a male springer spaniel puppy to try and sort her out. It worked but during the day they were play fighting a lot. I asked advice on it, getting worried we would have to give up the new dog because we weren’t used to having dogs doing that. We were told just to let it carry on, unless it got out of hand and they started properly biting eachother. This worked and now, two years on, they have both completely stopped.
I would say to let it carry on unless they start properly biting eachother, the dominance issues will sort themselves out, they’re just being normal dogs.
Dogs fight for a number of different reasons, but quests for dominance often underlie much of the sparring. Aggressive incidents may be isolated to one or two specific situations, such as competition over specific resources or space guarding issues. Hierarchical disputes are more common among dogs of the same sex and fights between two females are typically more vicious. Any breed can develop such hierarchical disputes as this goes hand in hand with "pack" mentality, but it may be more difficult to maintain stable hierarchies with terrier breeds and other breeds that have been selected to work independently.
Dogs in the same household will fight if they are near equal in social status.
Hierarchical disputes may arise if there is a change in dominance because the original top ranking dog loses status as he weakens with age or when a younger dog with a desire for a higher status reaches social maturity (18 months to 3 years of age) and begins to challenge the incumbent. Social relationships may also be affected when a new dog is introduced to the social group or when a dog is reunited with his social group following a period of absence. Under all of these circumstances, disputes are usually not life threatening and a new hierarchy will be established within a few weeks as long as the owners do not intervene.
If there are any serious teeth involved, then I would have a basket style muzzle on both of them the first few days until they come to an understanding with each other.
If it doesn’t escalate to more than posturing with each other, and what you have described above, I still would not allow them to be loose together unless you are there to keep the dogs in line. You are the dominate one in this situation, and if one of them gets too "snarky" with the other – you need to give a loud clap, or loudly use whatever voice cue you use that means – cut it out ! Let them know that you are the one who is in charge.
They need to sort it out between the two of themselves – but not for dominate position, but 2nd & 3rd positions. If you take control of the situation when they look at each other wrong, that will let the new dog know that you are in charge, and that will help take the pressure off of both dogs.
Do spend lots of time walking both dogs together, it builds unity between dogs to travel together.