Labrador Anger

Question
I have two very old labs - 17 and 15. The older is the mother. Both females. The younger has always been somewhat possessive. Lately, the younger one has been attacking the older one. The older one's health is deteriorating. Is this an instinctual thing, like maybe as an older member of the pack becomes less useful???

Answer
Familial relationships are not obtainable to dogs except in the neonate stage: your younger Lab does not recognize the older as her dam.  As a dog in a multiple dog household deteriorates in health and cognition, the remaining dog(s) will respond to faulty body language communication, scent (illness related) and aberrant physical motor skills (wobbling on legs, etc.) and cognition factors (staring into space).  You must absolutely protect the older dog by separating these two and take the older dog to the veterinarian for a "quality of life" assessment.