Wow - 10 mos old female very dominant over male - Page 1

Hello. Just seeing real signs of this lately. It was coming.The male is 7 yrs old GSD mix. He has been deferring food and toys to her already. There have been 2 fights in 2 days. Mainly posturing but I have been able to verbally break up. I have put them each in long downs after that. Today, there was extra kibble on the floor and she went into attack mode over it....holy smokes. I haven't had to deal with such a dominant female at that age. Is this a "passing of the torch" and a phase until they once and for all work it out? I don't want major problems moving forward. I don't want it to continue but hear different sides of the story as to let them work it out or for me not to allow posturing etc. Please advise. Thanks K

kmaot, You may want to look into Ed Frawley's web discussion board. His web site is www.leerburg.com and the reason I recommend it is because he has a Q&A section on dealing with dominant dogs and raising multiple dogs together in the home (and the problems that can arise). BTW, it is not uncommon for bitches to be dominant over males. It sounds like you're going to have get control of the situation before someone gets hurt. Is your male neutered? Is your female spayed? Some dominant dogs show reduced aggression about being neutered/spayed. Takes the hormones out of the equation. Yvette

Hi Yvette. He is neutered and she is not spayed. We are still waiting to spay her. She is being schutzhund trained at this time and is rather "confident".

My female was guarding her bones from my very submissive 1 year old male (at the time) the first day I brought her home (she was 8 wks old). We (fairly new dog owners) thought it was 'cute', until it got worse and worse...she began guarding a 3-4 foot halo around anything that she deemed hers. She NEVER did this with people, I knew I could not allow that, I always took her things from her to make sure she behaved with people. But as for the way she behaved with my male...at the time I thought she was "establishing her position" and thought it was okay. Well she was almost 2 when she began attacking him. I mean balls to the wall pit bull style!!! Luckily I was there to break it up every time. I realized I needed to put her in her place. NILF (Nothing in life is free). I made some new rules, no throwing of balls in the house, no bones AT ALL, no going through doorways first (especially my bedroom), no going on my bed UNLESS and only IF INVITED (For all you critics...I work 3rd shift and don't like sleeping alone). Sit and wait until I put the bowl down and give you permission to begin. I haven't had an attack in over 2 yrs, which is around the time I made all the "new rules", so I suppose it worked, she definitely does not bully him around anymore. I also watch her body posture like a hawk just to give her a verbal if needed (BEFORE she hits the "red zone" where no amount of screaming or punching to the head will get her to stop) but I rarely even have to say anything to her. In that time I was also able to introduce another adult dog into my home (older than the other two). Something that would have never happened before! Good luck

This is very bad and needs to be stopped immediately...

http://www.beckerfoto.photosite.com/RXC Take a look, this was my bitch! Make sure you read the captions, lol. I should have squashed it back then and never allowed her to do that!! She didn't let him on the couches or beds...yeh it was bad...he was her "bitch", and there was lots of humping...HE was on the recieving end. I think the only reason it took her 2 years to start attacking him was because he was SOOO submissive to her. Which in hindsight made her worse. Lesson learned!

I have had several dominent females over the last 20 years. Poor ole stud males would let them whup on on them. Not unusal but some males will let the female dominate up to a point then will put her down.

We have one female who we had to teach to play nicer with our one male. She now has to have a kong in her mouth when he is out. She is not allowed to drag him around the house by his neck.

Animules - that is the situation here. She is always hanging off his neck. How did you train the Kong thing? Mine goes beserk around him and is so focussed I can't believe it. She MUST herd and direct and bite him....

It took time, consistency, and lots of kongs handy. The first thing we did was remove his collars so she couldn't grab those. She was only allowed with him if we were there also, never when we weren't there. Every time she would grab him, we would tell her "no, get your kong" and stick a kong in her mouth. It took time and consistency so dont't give up. Now she tries to share her kong with him by sticking it in his face, but she does not drag him around anymore. Did I mention time? Good luck.