# Dogs suddenly aggressive



## Ktrim14 (Nov 11, 2013)

I have two dogs, Dexter and Kato.
Kato is a GSD/wolf mix, altered (last week), one year old, and we have had him since he was 8 weeks old.
Dexter is GSD/Lab mix, altered, ~one year old, and we got him about 4 months ago.

Both dogs have been well socialized with other dogs and people and generally have good manners. Kato has been through basic training and we have been providing some training to Dexter on our own. Both dogs got along perfectly, always playing together, no signs of aggression at all. 

A few weeks ago we had our first little problem with feeding them. Kato likes to take his time and could be a free feeder, while Dexter inhales his food in seconds. Normally when we feed we dish out there food and put them away from eachother - one in the kitchen the other in the living room. A few times we would catch Dexter eating from Kato's bowl, and Kato didn't care. But a couple times Kato would still be eating and Dexter would growl and snip at Kato while Kato tried to eat. So we started feeding Dexter outside and kept him there until Kato was done eating.

Last week we were feeding th dogs and both had finished but I forgot to put Kato's bowl up before Dexter came in. When we let him inside he smelled Kato's dish and started growling and lunged at Kato. Both dogs engaged and began going at it. Fortunately my husband was home and we got them broken up and seperated before either could get hurt. Ever since then, they will not get along. Kato at the time was still intact, but he was neutered 2 days later. They still can't seem to get along. We have to keep them completely seperated our fighting always ensues. A few times Kato has pinned Dexter (Kato has been the alpha since day 1) but Dexter keeps instigating the fights. 

We are at a complete loss, we don't know what to do. We had such a happy little household and now it's very stressful trying to give both dogs attention but keeping them separated. Does anyone have any ideas of why this is going on? Or what we can do to fix it? This all was so out of the blue- both dogs got along SO well! We would love to get back to how it was before but don't even know where to start.

Any help is greatly appreciated!


----------



## Alwaysaworkingdog (Feb 27, 2013)

Ktrim14 said:


> I have two dogs, Dexter and Kato.
> Kato is a GSD/wolf mix, altered (last week), one year old, and we have had him since he was 8 weeks old.
> Dexter is GSD/Lab mix, altered, ~one year old, and we got him about 4 months ago.
> 
> ...


Neutering a male dog when it's already, most likely, sexually mature (1 year old), won't really do much in the way of stemming dominance aggression or rank drive.

Your dogs have different amounts of food drive. Your dog Dexter obviously has higher food drive than Kato. This not only manifests itself in extreme resource guarding but also in bullying. Some dogs are so food driven that they will physically fight off another dog from that dog's food bowl and start eating their food.

A male:male pairing also isn't the most educated of gender matchings that you could have gone with. Same sex pairings are more prone to aggression because the ancestors of a dogs competed within sex with little competition between sex. Males compete for breeding rights and females often compete on a maternally territorial basis. Point is, you made a bad decision from the start choosing to keep two males together. 

This sudden change may have been due to them both coming into full sexual maturity or it may just be that this one unfortunate incident has turned both of these animals dog-aggressive, specifically toward each other. Maybe it was a combination of the two.

More importantly, what can you actually do about a situation like this? Keep in mind that males fight with each other, sometimes it's play fighting and sometimes this escalates. Other times the dogs are literally going for each other, or in your case, Dexter is attacking Kato. 

I own a dog and a bitch and they fight, sometimes quite aggressively as my boy is quite rough and dominant, but they always seem to resolve it by themselves so I just accept it as a part of their relationship. But to the outsider it would appear as if they were about to kill each other.

So you definitely need to assess the severity of the fighting. Are the dogs injuring each other? is it just a scuffle? Can you discourage Dexter?

If you genuinely feel that these fights put your dogs in danger then you've done the right thing by separating them. Then the best option would be to rehome one of them, possibly Kato, because I cant see Dexter going to a home with other dogs, which makes him harder to adopt out. Unless you're willing to keep both of them housed separately.

If the fights begin and are resolved in a few minutes and you notice the dogs are playing or getting along normally, then you could try to discourage the behaviour from dexter and just monitor the situation. But even then, you're not going to be able to supervise them 24/7.

You have some tough decisions to make. Good luck


----------



## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

It's not going to help that Kato is a wolf hybrid, and just maturing. 

Definitely not the best of situations. 

Do they draw blood or just make a lot of noise?

David Winners


----------



## SusiQ (Jul 27, 2007)

Ktrim - it may make sense that Dexter is the aggressor - I have a wolf hybrid myself, and wolves mature later than dogs -usually around 4 yrs. old - also, they are quite shy and much more "in tune" to the pack order. My Diablo (very low content) is 5 yrs. old and didn't mature until he was between 4-5. It is quite possible, therefore, that Dexter is reaching maturity now and Kato is a couple of years away from full maturity. Please don't believe the hype about wolfdogs - unless Kato is a very high content (you would know this by now - he would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to house train - he would be destructive in the house regardless of age - he would not like to live in the house - he would be an "escape artist," etc.)

I have fostered high content wolfdogs as well and there is a distinct difference, believe me! You will know when Kato matures - you can pm me for details as I don't want to take up any more space here. I do agree, though, that two males, regardless of type, can be an issue. Good luck!


----------



## Gretchen (Jan 20, 2011)

They are getting to that age when things start to change. We thought we had the perfect puppy, until our female got to be about 10 months old.

So it sounds like you are already feeding them separately. I wonder if you have tried walking them together. Getting out walking in neutral territory with other dogs has helped ours. The only other thing I could think of is also spending time with each, individually. Taking one out with you for errands or a hike, the other will have a quiet, less stressful time at home. I honestly don't know if this will work with dogs, but it helped with my twin girls when they were younger - they just got tired of being together all the time ( of course the one I left at home was with her dad, not alone!).


----------



## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

Ktrim14 said:


> I have two dogs, Dexter and Kato.
> Kato is a GSD/wolf mix, *altered (last week),* one year old, and we have had him since he was 8 weeks old.
> Dexter is GSD/Lab mix, altered, ~one year old, and we got him about 4 months ago.


Kato isn't 100%. He isn't going to forgive specific behaviors from Dexter. Dexter senses Kato isn't 100% and is attempting to take advantage of it. 

I have three male dogs. One dog is altered, and an older dog. He is my only problem child. He is the aggressor. Due to medical reasons, I have to keep him away from my GSD 24/7. My GSD could kill him. 

My GSD will dominate my Lacy. My Lacy allows it...but I don't. Nobody dominates nobody. I am the leader. 

I am careful to either feed totally seperate or I'm right there in the mix. Once one is done, the bowl comes up. Always. When they play with toys together, I watch carefully. If one even begins to give the stink eye, I end the game. I don't correct. Ending the game is the correction. They do not share kennels. They do not share bowls. I walk them together. They work together. I run them out in the pasture together. We travel together. We play together. But there are certain triggers that I know will cause un-wanted behavior. One is dinner time. The other is if I rough house with one dog the other dog will become stressed. So if I want to rough house, I seperate the dogs.


----------



## LaRen616 (Mar 4, 2010)

I don't think the problem is necessarily that they are both males, I think the problem is that they are the exact same age, they are both males, they both seem to have a dominant personality and one of them is food aggressive. Bad combo!

I would continue to feed them separately and I would pick up the bowls immediately when they are done! Do not leave them together unattended!

At this point I would also put away all of the toys because some dogs are food and toy aggressive, I would try to minimize the the chances of them fighting. 

Pack walks are great for bonding, so try walking them together but bring someone with you incase a fight breaks out.


----------



## e.rigby (May 28, 2011)

I've found that males do the best in pairs, so long as they are compatible. Two females, on the other hand, can be very difficult. 

If you just recently had one of your males neutered, it could take up to 30 days for all the testosterone to be out of his system. 

In the mean time, try walking them together.

Also, might be helpful to call in a behaviorist, you might be missing very subtle body language going on.


----------



## martemchik (Nov 23, 2010)

Both are maturing...right around one is when my boy started learning that he could stand up for himself and didn't always have to submit to other dogs.

You should start training them together. You train one, your husband trains the other. Take them to the same class, work them together outside, so that they're more focused on the work and pleasing you than each other. This will also show them that you and your husband are the leaders and it doesn't matter where in the pack order they are, as long as they are below you and your husband.

Now that they've started fighting, they probably won't stop unless you constantly put them in their place. Of course, avoid all their high value toys and treats so that they don't have a reason to fight in the first place. Obedience training will really help.


----------



## MadLab (Jan 7, 2013)

I always wonder do this behaviors suddenly appear. 

To me a dog going after anothers food is a recipe for aggression. As this behavior was present and not discouraged and stopped, the wolf cross dog had to look after himself and defend what was his. 


It is always the job of the owner to ensure these problems are stopped immediately or they develop and then the issue is way harder to fix. 

I think you need to work on dexter more now as he is the instigator.

Start with the food. Find ways to slow him down eating. A raised table for the bowl and these slow feed bowls. 

I find at feeding time the dogs are very attentive and will sit staring at me preparing the food.

When I feed my dogs I always feed together and stand there between them to teach them they can't go to another bowl when they are finished. I will give them a verbal correction if they look at another, a 'no' or a 'tssssh'. 

I gauge which dog is more calm and feed them first. I hold the food bowl and calmly stand over the dog softly looking it in the eyes. After a while they will look into my eyes and then I will feed them. Then I look at the other and do the same and make sure the dog is totally calm before it gets fed. The dogs eyes can dance between the food bowl and my eyes for a while but i wait so it looks at my and relaxes. To test this I will sometimes hold the bowl at arms length to my side and see if the dog is properly looking at me and appreciating where the food is coming from rather than just eying up his meal. 

This shows the dogs calmness gets rewarded not any excitement. When they are finished they must stay away from the other or they will get verbally corrected. I'd give them a jab if they didn't understand my intention with the verbal correction. But generally body language does it for me and a 'tsssh'. After a few weeks of that the dogs just are calm at food time and know the system.


----------



## Ktrim14 (Nov 11, 2013)

Thank you everyone for all the great advice. It is definitely a work in progress. We have owned GSDs before (which is why we felt comfortable with the breed) and I have had two male dogs live together no problems in the past.

I am happy to say that our pups are improving. My husband and I both made an effort to focus in on obedience work with them individually and together and it's really helped. Both dogs now play like they did before, but we have kept a close eye on the triggers like feeding time and certain toys. Finally, they can be in the same place at the same time!

Thanks again to everyone for their comments!


----------



## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

Good news and good job!

David Winners


----------



## harmony (May 30, 2002)

Ktrim14 said:


> I have two dogs, Dexter and Kato.
> Kato is a GSD/wolf mix, altered (last week), one year old, and we have had him since he was 8 weeks old.
> Dexter is GSD/Lab mix, altered, ~one year old, and we got him about 4 months ago.
> 
> ...


 
What you said, you missed the warning signs between your dogs. The first time Dexter took Kato's food and Kato having wolf in him? It will matter more if they are trained and fixed, but good luck. Wolf breeds are very different and you better know more then a dog to have a wolf breed  ok. Yes I have a wolf breed and it is not nothing like my sheps, and he is fixed also..


----------



## harmony (May 30, 2002)

Be confident . Ours is 7 - 9 years and he was 2? when we got him (intact). He learned a lot and my daughter loves this animal, but it took work and there are some things that are just a no-no . He came with the name "Bare", and we call him baby bare too, and some times I call him A1 ...


----------

