My 2 german shorthair pups are pissed off at each other..

Question
Hi I have 3 dogs all male purebreed german shorthair's. Willy is the dad he is 3. Spike and Duke are the pups. They were a year old this past June 09..  
spike and duke have been togather since birth. they are brothers. they play eat and sleep togather.Last week my older daughter took spike for 2 days. He came back and was pissed off at duke attacked they started fight we could hardly get them off each other.. they drew blood with teeth marks from each other. we tried again a couple hours later and they went at it again. we have them separate . I am trying to make friends. we have a sliding glass door so i put one on each side. and they just growl and duke got bit pretty hard so i think he mad and just shakes he won't even look at spike.. I need to have them make up. they are gonna get fixed on the 17th of this month. but how do i make they make up without killing one another..do i let them go at it but i don't want them to get hurt... they have never been so upset ever.. please can you help. if i can't get them to make up I am afraid we will have to put one to sleep and they are to nice to put down. please any adive would be great.

Answer
This sort of thing tends to happen here, too, when someone has been out and returns. I have to take a firm hand when that dog walks in the door to establish that *I* am the boss and that serious consequences await anyone who steps out of line. Not as big a deal here usually since my dogs weigh 20# at the most... and I am pretty good at wielding a broom, if needed. My dogs do understand that I am Alpha here, and that is respected if I am there to defuse a situation before it starts. Once dogs start fighting, they tend to tune everything else out. (Never get involved in a dog fight by trying to stop it by hand, but try to stop it instead with something like a corn broom to avoid getting bitten.)

Basically, after being separated for a time, the dogs have to establish their level of dominance in the pack again. This isn't usually a big deal unless the dogs are at similar levels of dominance.

In your case, there are probably a couple ways to handle this. The quickest way would probably be to muzzle both guys and let them have at it. Make sure those are good, strong muzzles that are well-fitted, and turn them loose somewhere that would minimize their injuries and damage to their surroundings. If you use the muzzles that allow them to drink, I would probably even leave those on for a couple-three days until the dogs are acting totally civilized again.

The longer way would be to keep the "new-comer" crated so that the other dog can sniff and view him through the crate door. When they get to the point where they are ignoring each other, then you can try them loose together. This part could take hours or DAYS. (It once took me two weeks to introduce a new male into the pack here using this method.) I would feed the one in the crate, with the loose dog being fed in view of the crated dog... maybe a couple feet in front of the door. Take turns as to which dog is loose so that the one dog is not crated all the time, but do not put them out together until there is obviously no animosity anymore.

Good luck with this! And if this doesn't resolve, I wouldn't put one of the dogs down, but find a new home for one instead.