2 female dogs fighting

Question
I've got 2 dogs, both of which are pound rescues, so I don't know how accurate their age info is.  I got Amy about 5 years ago and she is a lab/rott mix, she was listed as being "about 1 year old" at the time.  Roughly 1 year later I decided to get her a friend.  This is when I got Katie who is a husky/something mix, and she was also listed as being about one year old.  When I got Katie, I brought Amy with me to make sure they would get along, and everything seemed fine.  Since getting Katie, they have got along fairly well.  They have had the occasional fight, but nothing on-going, meaning they would have their fight, one of them would get a little hurt and then they would stop.  Sadly, this changed about 1 month ago.

It started out as a normal little fight, one of them got a little hurt and then they quit.  Afterwards, Amy had to have a cone on her head so she wouldn't scratch or lick her healing wound (a small cut near her eye).  As soon as Katie saw Amy with the cone on her head she attacked her.  It took me and my wife almost a full minute to get them separated.  Amy was defenseless with the cone around her head so Katie really hurt her bad.  We've kept them separated ever since, keeping one in their kennel while the other one is out.  After 2 weeks of this, we decided to start re-introducing them.  Amy had since healed up a little and was back to her normal self, while Katie still seemed anxious and was constantly looking for Amy.  Luckily, I was able to borrow 2 basket muzzles from my vet, because as soon as they were loose and near each other Katie immediately attacked Amy again.  The first time wasn't too bad, they stopped fairly quick, but the second time was much more intense.  In every case, Katie has been the attacker while Amy just retreats and tries to get away and/or defend herself.  

The stuff I've been reading on this site suggests that they are fighting for pack leader (Amy has been the leader and now Katie wants it after seeing Amy in a weakened state, ie the cone), but I don't understand why they are just starting this now after getting along so well for so long.  Did Katie just sense the opportunity and go for it?  They both still listen to me very well (sit, stay, wait, leave it, take it, etc) although they both listen much better separately vs. when they are together.  When they are near each other now, Amy tries to hide behind whoever has her leash while Katie stands looking at Amy wait for her chance to strike again.  

From the beginning, Amy has always seemed to be the dominant one.  The biggest indicator was that she would mount Katie - even though they are both female.  Katie would usually tolerate it for awhile, but she would eventually spin out of it or Amy would stop, they would bark a bit and it was done.  That has slowly become more infrequent over the years.  And after reading up here and thinking about their behavior a bit more, I think there may have been a subtle shift in dominance going on between them that we have inadvertently screwed with.  Could this be the cause of it all?  



My main fear now is that Katie is not going to stop until she kills Amy, and we're almost to the point where we don't know what to do other than find a new home for Katie.  Obviously I don't want to do this, but I feel like I'm running out of options.  Its not fair to have Amy living in fear of Katie, and its not fair to keep Katie kenneled more often for being "bad" and attacking.

So for the time being they are permanently separated.  They sleep in separate kennels and stay in them while we are at work, and we have to play musical dogs when we get home and on the weekends.  I don't have a problem with this provided its just a phase in their training, but at some point they are going to have to get along again so we can keep both of them.

Is there any hope of somehow training this out of them or otherwise fixing the situation so there is peace again without having to find a new home for one of them?

Answer
Hi, Mike,

Thanks for contacting me.

This is a very difficult situation, as you know. And it wouldn't be appropriate for me to give you training advice about something as volatile as the relationship between Katie and Amy apparently is. There's already been some serious damage done, and I'd hate to have something I said here be misconstrued, misunderstood, or misapplied and have more bloodshed result.

I DO want to answer one of your primary questions though, which might help you see "the light at the end of the tunnel," so to speak. And that is that there's no such thing as dominant or submissive behavior in dogs. So there was no shift in dominance between them that you inadvertently messed up. If anything, it seems to me you're doing the best you can, given the limited (though most commonly disseminated) information you have about what's going on between them.

Here's a link to an article titled "Is Your Dog Dominant, or Just Feeling Anxious?" which will explain what must seem to you to be the rather shocking statement I made above (that there's no such thing as dominance and submission): http://tinyurl.com/2q2esp

What I think is really going on is that both dogs are under a tremendous amount of emotional stress, and each one perceives the other (at times) as the locus point, if you will, of that stress. When dogs are under stress they're sort of designed to look for and attack "weakness." That's why Katie's aggression spiked when Amy had the cone around her head. She was extremely vulnerable.

I think it IS possible to bring these dogs back to a state of harmony, which I think is the normal state for dogs, at least it's normal when dogs aren't stressed past their ability to withstand the pressure. But since these two girls are kind of past the breaking point already, I think it would probably take some very hard work by a real expert at canine anger management, not a devoted and well-meaning dog owner such as yourself.

However, I'm not going to leave you totally in the dark here. So while I can't prescribe behavior modification protocols without knowing a lot more about these dogs (in most cases I'm able to give pretty accurate advice without meeting the dogs in question, but in this case I'm extremely hesitant to do that), I CAN direct you to a trainer who actually BECAME a trainer due to some aggression issues he had with his own dog. He writes a blog on training. I've posted the link below.

Also: sometimes, when I get a question through this website, I get a clear picture of what needs to be done for a particular dog; it just sort of pops into my head while I'm on the bus or walking through the park. I'm not sure that will happen for Katie and Amy, but if it does, I'll let you know. I'll be thinking about them...

Meanwhile, visit Neil Sattin's blog: http://www.naturaldogblog.com/blog

Also, here's a helpful tip, though again, I'm not sure how helpful it will actually be. But if you can take the girls on some long walks together, preferably in as natural a setting as possible, the tension between them might start to dissipate somewhat. I'm not sure how much that will carry over to their domestic disputes, but it might take some of the edge of until you can find a way to resolve this.

http://www.tiny.cc/walking2dogs

Finally, while you have to intervene physically when they're at each other's throats, you also have to take into account how much emotional stress you're adding to the situation. How can you NOT, of course? But the more zenlike you can be about this, taking deep breaths, learning to find techniques to settle their nerves before they blow their tops, etc., you may find that'll help a great deal as well.

Let me know if you have any questions or problems,

LCK