question

Question
We have a female bulldog...we'll it's actually my brother's dog. He went away for about thirty days and she was very happy to see him again. She just went into her first heat and just now my mother went into his room and laid on his bed to talk to him, and Desi (the dog) went to bite the back of her head. Not in a playful tone. I walked in to sit on his bed to see what the problem was and she immediately stood in between me and my brother and he had to hold her so I could get off her bed. I have been bitten by a rot when I was younger and the incident tonight gave me the same eerie feeling of my past. Is this just because she's in heat? Or, not to be gross, my mother and I are on our cycles, could that have something to do with it? How can we fix this?

Answer
This is a combination of things.

#1 is that it's her first heat. These are always particularly intense and offer up some very weird behavior in many instances.

#2 your brother was gone and returned and she's feeling very possessive of him.  This isn't a good thing and he should not encourage this behavior at all.

#3 it could very well also include the fact that (no grossness taken) the whole resident female population is in the same boat!

I suggest you put her in a crate for the duration. She needs to know that her behavior is not acceptable and it will also keep the mess down in your home. Because doesn't have a lot of boundaries (i.e. sleeping in bed) she has risen to the lofty position of alpha female in the house.  She needs to be shown that she doesn't run the show.  Biting is definitely not acceptable and there should be strong discipline if this occurs again.