beagle fighting

Question
we have 4 beagles who live in house with dog door, have around 1/2 acre electric fenced yard and are basically treated as kids. We feed only dog food with occasional treats. Mother is well papered AKA who we bred to on site father (also well papered from different breeder) 2 offspring we kept from first and only litter of 8, sold the rest. 1 male and 1 female. Problem: father is 7 years old (we bought him as puppy)mother is 6 years old, also bought as pup. "pups" are now 4 years old. At 2 years old father and son started fighting usually when we pulled into house parking and they are all excited to greet us. It quickly escalated and became quite vicious with severe bites and wounds. We have kept them segregated for two years now (I am full time army and did a year in Iraq so this is one reason this has been going on so long)  and it is a pain to keep them apart. They play the territory game and urinate and dig at each others spots when outside and if we let them fight it out one of them would probably be killed,   both pretty equal in size, strength and aggression. I have had enough of this but due to wife and kids I am not allowed to get rid of one of them. Help! Thank you

Answer
parent dogs and cats often spurn their off spring when the pups/kitties grow up and become rivals. the parent dogs view the grown dogs as competition for attention food, shelter, etc. Its seldom a good idea to keep the off spring with the parents.  The mother weans the pups off when they are od enough to eat on their own, and stops nurturing them at about 7-9 months when the pups can fend for themselves. I have 7 Beagles now, and among the cats, the two off spring of the mother cat we adopted is treated as aliens by the mom cat.

The best you can do is to keep them physically and mentally stimulated in other things, play, toys, food puzzles etc. They need 4-6 hrs per day of exercise to remain healthy. Beagles are energetic dogs, they can run for hours at a time after prey.

You can try crating them in different parts of the house, or use a baby gate to fence off areas as needed.  Obedience training should have been done on all 4 dogs, as socialization skills are part of that regimine. Since they are now all adult dogs, the socilization period ended 18 months ago, so their natural emotive state has been programmed.

Thank you for serving our country.  

Regards,
Henry Ruhwiedel
www.dogkennel.org