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Fighting over toys

Sam

Member
Sam & Louie are generally getting on well. Louie (bleinhim) is 2 years old and has been with us for 10 weeks and has come from the enviroment of being a show dog and not a pet, hence he is finding it difficult to play games and interact. Louie has just had a fight with Sam (our 3 year old bleinhim who we have had since he was a puppy) over a toy and he bit Sam's ear. This has not happened before and we are very concerned as we are going away for a week in January and Sam and Louie are going to stay with a friend who has three dogs of her own.

We would be grateful for any suggestions or advice. :?
 
This would be pretty normal behaviour -- it is one thing for Sam to enjoy meeting a dog who is there for a visit, but they do get jealous as soon as it becomes clear that the new dog is sticking around. They need to figure out who is the top dog and to a certain extent you need to ignore this and let them have a few scuffles, keeping an eye out so that it doesn't get out of hand. This may well include some noisy fights that seem much worse than they are. If you intervene each time, they stay unsettled as their relative positions are not assured.

That said I would be very careful about toys and feeding, which tend to be the hot spots -- because it's better not to create situations where problems might arise, and they will sort out their roles anyway over time, and will be less likely to actually fight it out later on. If there are toys that keep causing fights (in my house, it was chews when I got my second adult cav) then do not offer those items at all, or offer only while crated or under controlled supervision. I'd certainly be feeding the dogs a good distance apart at least for a while, or else in their crates.

Almost certainly you will find the relationship has settled enormously by the time you go away. Also as two among five dogs, the situation will likely be diffused anyway -- lots of dogs to play with, with less focus on one having to watch the other. I'd just ask your friend to follow the cautions above regarding feeding and toys as well.

My guys gave each other a few good bites in small battles in the first few months after Leo joined the house, even though they were also friends almost immediately. Now this tends to only happen when Jaspar, the stinker, plays games with foods and toys -- he likes to set them up so Leo tries to take them, then he'll try to snatch it away just in time. Every now and then this leads to a skirmish still. :roll:
 
Yep, pretty normal behavior. Even with all the toys we have, there is an occaisional skirmish over a toy.

If you don't feed them separately, you might want to do that. I found in the past that there are far more fights over food than toys. We feed our dogs in their crates. That does two things: it eliminates the fights over food and it makes their crate a good place to be, so they don't object to crating when they go somewhere.
 
Hi all,
We'll be getting Twinkle in a few weeks and we're hoping Daisy Boo takes to her easily enough because she is only six months old herself. I'm expecting her nose to be out of joint but I think she really needs a playmate because sometimes she looks a bit bored and we can't spend all our time entertaining her (much as we'd like to). I'm also hoping it will make Daisy Boo eat more because she tends to leave her food and prefers to graze at it over a long period of time. Of course I take it up after about half an hour but then I worry she's not getting enough, though her weight is fine.
Joanna
 
new friends

Our breeder advised us to let them get on with it, as we wanted Busta to be top dog as such, they meet played, had a fight (Woody gave in first) and are now great friends, we did buy a couple of toys that were for Woody though so Busta didn't have to share, but they play with everything now and still have fights when they each get on each others nerves.
 
Re: new friends

csprice said:
We did buy a couple of toys that were for Woody though so Busta didn't have to share, but they play with everything now and still have fights when they each get on each others nerves.

the problem is trying to tell the other one that the toy is not for him!!!
 
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