territorial aggression

Question
Hi,
I just adopted a miniature American Eskimo female which is 3 years old. She is a wonderful dog except one problem. My sister has a miniature male Dachshund who is 7 years old and every time she sees him at our house or at his house she is very aggressive towards him. She snaps and barks at him and of course sometimes he stands up for himself but she starts all of the fights. We took them on a few walks together and they were very well behaved and she did not mind him being there at all. But as soon as he enters the house she goes nuts. Before her I had a standard American Eskimo female which passed away over a year ago. She was like an older sister to the Dachshund and they had no problems. It is extremely important that they get along because we spend a lot of time together as a family and we want our dogs to be a part of that. We just want her to stop going after him. We know she is capable of being nice to other dogs because before we adopted her she was in a foster home for about 3 weeks with other dogs and the foster mother said she had no problems at all with other dogs.  

Answer
Hi Betsy,

Time and social distance will help. Walking them and then taking off leashes to go in the house won't.

Try, going for a walk and when you (on leash) bring them in and give them both a big marrow bone to chew on. Make it a ritual. We walk, then we eat some bones. Make it the only time they get anything like that and in no short order they may start seeing each other as the great pre cursor to fabulousness.

Try not to force them to like each other, keep things short and sweet and/or put them away from each other after short successful interactions. I know it' important to have them get along so stay below the thresh hold of reactivity. If they continue to fight once inside, it may flavor their relationship forever.