Submissive Behavior

Question
Hi,

I'm at my wit's end and am hoping you might be able to help me.  I recently moved in with my boyfriend.  He has a 5 year old male husky, I have an 8 year old female husky.  His male will not let her eat or drink.  Even if I put him outside, as long as she can see him, she will not go near her bowls.  I have to literally move her bowls to a place where she can't see him, sit down next to her and coax her to eat.  They play pretty good outside but when I call them in, she won't go anywhere near the door unless she can't see him and, even then, she bows her head and acts submissive.  She's always been a wonderful, loyal dog and I hate to see her cowed like this.  They don't fight but he is definitely acting alpha.  How do I break this behavior and get them to exist side by side peacefully?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!


Answer
This is a real tough situation, and one that I think might require a professional to be onsite and watch things.  However, my best piece of advice is obedience training for both dogs.  It is important that you establish leadership over both dogs as this will do several very important things:

1) Reduce the need for the male to act dominant over the female (there is leadership in the home - he doesn't have to "step-up.")

2) Establish yourselves as in control, and therefore, be in a better position to reprimand dominant behavior and establish some equalities.

3) Give the female dog some confidence in serving the dominant members of the pack (you and your bf).

Other things to do is to feed the dogs separately, play with them separated, etc.  The idea is to take away all situations where the dogs are together when either dog feels like they are in a dominant/submissive role.  The idea behind this is to eliminate circumstances that reinforce the roles.  Once you eliminate all those, you slowly started reintroducing them, with the idea that you can help control the reactions a little more and rebuild trust with the sub female, and establish limits with the dominant male.

Other than that, you may need a professional trainer/behavorist to take a look at the physical interactions and suggest things that may be hard to identify from a brief description over email.  Additionally, keep in mind that it is alright for one dog to be dominant over another, and you should respect that in 90% of the cases.  However, it should not be detrimental to the health or well-being of the submissive dog.  And then, the unfortunate reality is that some dogs just can't live together.  It doesn't sound like this may be the case (as you say they play together alright), but it is a possibility.

Try the training and working on things to establish yourselves as in charge, and if that doesn't start to help (along with trying to isolate those moments of potential conflict), find an animal trainer/behaviorist in your area that can come out and take a look.  (Your vet may be able to recommend someone).