Dogs at war:
For the last few weeks, we’ve had a huge number (at least two a day) bit I’ll-Rip-Your-Throat-Out dog fights between the three dogs, one of which sent me and Susan to the ER to fix up some nasty puncture wounds from a dog bite in her forearm.
Normally, these fights happens when everyone’s home, and in particular when Mere and Susan walk out or in the door. (In which case, someone, usually Jack, gets really excited, and our Alpha Bitch, Dash (who is very gentle with us and all people, and has only really hit the wall recently with the other dogs) decides to put that dog or dogs In Their Place. The hard way.
And when this starts up, whoever wasn’t attacked tends to get into the fight and fuels more trouble. The worst of the fight is when the two older Wire Fox Terriers go for each other; poor blind Dot has suffered a fair amount of damage to her face and forelegs - and in other parts, too. These fights almost always upstairs or otherwise far out of my reach. Very frequently, someone struggling with a fighting-mad 25-pound Terrier will come to me and dump the dog in my lap to handle. After 50 years of being around the breed, I know how to contain them with a great deal of success.
But how to stop the fights before they start? Beats me.
Susan took Dash and Dot into the vet - and he said that Dash isn’t going through some obvious illness or imbalance, and suggested that it was behavioural. That’s all very nice, but what was the trigger and what will derail this process? (I’m not worried about the dogs hurting me, but about Mere, Susan or the dogs getting seriously hurt in the process of all these fights.)
At this point, Susan has gotten a referral for a dog trainer in the area who’s supposed to be top notch, and the trainer will be by this Sunday afternoon. So we’ll see where it goes from there…