new mother dogs and aggression

Question
hey. i have two female labs. they are almost 3 years and we have had them since they were five weeks old.  we got them at the same time from the same mom.  until they delivered their babies, both my girls were perfect together.. ate together, slept together, played together, rode in car together, everything together..in fact they were pregnant at the same time (dog jumped fence).  They delived within 2 days of each other. ok, heres the problem..since the black one delivered shes been a aggressive bitch towards the brown one.  i moved the brown one  with her puppies to my brothers. and now that the brown one's puppies are given away and all but one of the black ones are given away, today i tried to bring the brown one to the fence to get reaquanited with the black one..it is her sister after all.  oh, i did move the puppy out of the fence while i tried to bring the brown one to the gate to see the black one.  well, for the first minute, they were fine... wagging tails, and sniffing each other. then the black one goes to growling and barking like a maniac and then the brown one starts angrily barking back. im getting them both "fixed" next week, and id like to know if my girls will return to normal.  or do i need to find them good homes?  i dont want to get rid of my girls but i cant have them together fighting.. what do i do?

Answer
There are couple issues here.

First - Motherhood trumps sisterhood in dogs. In this aspect they are different from humans. There is no shared joy at having puppies, and once the puppies are born, even sisters will be unwelcome until the pups are completely weaned or gone.

Second - As you DO know ;) dogs can't talk, but that does NOT stop them from having arguments between them. When they have arguments over crossing forbidden boundaries, taking another dog's food loud aggressive barking, even fake attempts to bite can ensue. How loud and aggressive it seems depends on the size of the infraction as well as the status of each dog. The more equal they are the louder and longer the fight will go on, until one submits.

Third - Aggression in mother dogs is very normal, especially early on when the pups have been born the mother will usually tolerate absolutely no one save the owner getting near her and her litter. Sisters, mothers and daughters can easily turn into seeming enemies during this time, and given a chance try and steal the other's pups.

The aggression will be something worry about if it keeps up after the pup is gone or weaned.

Even afterwards, you could experience this, but it should be temporary and you should let it play out, and only worry if they actually bite each other (not fake bite which looks like they are trying but never do). It should resolve considering they got along before the pups came as they reestablish who is dominant and who is submissive. An understanding the litters probably disrupted. and now needs to be reestablished.

By stopping them from doing this, you actually are prolonging it and keeping it that way. Dogs have rules that they live by when it comes to deciding whose boss. When a conflict about this arises it's best to let them settle it themselves AS LONG as they ARE NOT actually biting and hurting each other. Mouthing is NOT biting in this context.

Taking these things together helps understand what is happening and what to do next.

First, until the last pup is weaned or gone, you shouldn't expect the black dog to want her sister around. That's just the general nature of dogs. There are exceptions, but the behavior of your black dog is very normal. The way you describe sisters is the way humans are able to understand it.

Dogs know whose related to them and not, but all this doesn't matter for a mother dog (yes I know the word is bitch, but I'm not a breeder. so i can say it how I like ;) as long as she has puppies.

This situation probably developed, because the brown dog was a little bit subservient to the black one. When she had puppies though that all changed, for her #1 concern became her puppies and she wasn't going to let the black dog get her way like she probably does before this. To our human eyes the changes in the way she behaved would have been almost impossible to recognize unless you documented their behavior 24/7 beforehand.

The changes are subtle, like hanging around longer or closer when the other dog was eating. Looking at the other dog, when in the past she'd quickly look away. Looking directly at another dog is an unstated challenge. Looking away is the same as giving way. So I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't see anything different between your dogs save for black girl barked at your brown girl.

We humans forget that dog's can't talk, but if they could, you'd hear a lot of catty bitching back and forth like say about meals during this time.

Brown dog: hey sis you're not as hungry as I am, give me that food.

Black dog: you touch my plate and you're a dead dog brownie.

Brown dog: Well, I never, I don't believe you are going to eat it, so I'm going to sit right hear and wait til you are done to eat that myself.

Black dog: well you're going to wait a long time, then, because I'm not eating another bite until you STOP looking at me.

Brown dog: I'm NOT looking at you, I'm looking at the food you're not going to eat.

Black Dog; For the last time I will eat it when you GO AWAY! .....

You could have easily watched these silent exchanges and thought nothing of it, until one of them finally had enough and started barking.

So what I'd suggest is pretty simple, keep them separate until the puppy is gone or weaned completely and no longer looks to mom for mothering.

Regardless, spaying them both is a sure fire way to lesson the tension between the two pup or no pup.

In regards to finding new homes, I sincerely doubt you will have to go that far, especially since you are going to spay the girls.

Good luck with this. I hope it helps fix the little problem.