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Help... dog attacked other dog (long post...sorry)
My DH and I have 3 dogs. Golden Retriever (11.5 years), Finnish Spitz (8 years), and a Golden/Collie mix (5.5 months).
A few years ago my sister came into town to visit for the weekend and brought her husky puppy (around 7 months old at the time). My finnish spitz, Maria, was not very happy and gave a bite to the husky and then attacked her best friend, the golden, biscuit. After my sister left the fighting with the golden continued. We had behavioral training and put her on anxiety medication. We tried multiple times to bring them back together and just one time it worked and they have been living together for about 2 years without an incident. (the fights were pretty bad with a lot of blood).
We thought about getting another dog because we thought she hadn't had an incident and she seemed to be a lot calmer. We got this very sweet golden/collie 1 month ago. After a week of having her, I was in the kitchen and I heard a huge squeal and she attacked almost to the death to the little sweet puppy. Her whole eyelid was detached and her eye was bleeding pretty bad. I ran to the Vet's office and he preformed emergency surgery. The dog is still recovering and for the most part is ok. The Vet told us we were extremely lucky.
For a few weeks I was living in our other place with the puppy and my DH was living in our primary residence. Our Vet says Maria cannot be trusted and no rescue will take her because of her known aggression issues. My DH doesn't want to send her to a shelter/rescue anyways because he says that's just putting her to death and he would rather have her go peacefully than for the last at most 6 months live on a hard cold concrete floor. Maria was my husband's first dog and he loves her to death as I do too. It's very sad because she is wonderful with people and it's just when another dog enters her home (she's really flirtatious on her walks, even though she's fixed...hehe)........ well, we have tried our best and people tell us just to get rid of the puppy, but I say to my DH is, what will happen when we finally become pregnant. Do you really trust Maria with a new baby, another member added to the family? The Vet said he wouldn't.
We are trying to sell the other place and hoping our friend who is buying the place will take her, but it's not a guarantee and the guy is a bachelor who has a really odd sleeping schedule.
Help!... thoughts?
Re: Help... dog attacked other dog (long post...sorry)
I'm going to cross post you so hopefully some of the regulars will come back and answer your question. I would probably reconsult with a behaviorist and work with a vet who is a behavioral specialist. Not just a regular vet. A behavioral vet will have far more info in terms of medications, etc.
Personally, I would go to a crate and rotate system with them, a lot of regulars on here do it. You keep her separate from them in the house and make sure to spend good quality time with her, rotate who gets to hang out with you guys. Getting on a good schedule makes this easier. This could work especially well if one of you is able to take her to work, or if one of you works from home. Work time could be her quality time, and then when you're home at night and relaxing the other dogs get their time. We recently dog sat a dog who was aggressive towards ours and she got a cushy set up in our finished basement with walks and quality time on her own. We walked her out of the basement door so she never even had to pass ours. There are definitely creative solutions that require some work, but it sounds like she is really special to your H and I am big on following through on pet commitments.
I have a dog who was attacking my other dog after being BFF for over a year, one day she just started attacking him, infrequent at first then they couldn't even be in the same room. I got her on Prozac and had to have the dose upped 4 times before we found the right dose. Took about a month or 2 and the fighting stopped. She is great with my child but I don't let him harass my dogs because they are still animals and I am very cautious.
Good luck.
Get Maria a full medical checkup at the vet.
Maybe there is a health problem going on and this is what is affecting her behavior.
People can get grouchy and moody when they are ill.
Have her thyroid checked, also. A hyperactive thyroid in humans can make people very edgy and aggressive. It is probably the same in dogs.
Maria is currently on anxiety medication. I'm thinking we need to up the dosage. The behavioralist wasn;t much help and told us when she had her fights with our golden that it was "out for the kill and it's not just to warning bite or just a normal fight because they were a lot deeper". She chewed part of my golden's ear off and she is half the size of my 11.5 year golden! My husband and I will try to get the dog off each other and him and I have both received cuts because we just get in the middle and they dont mean to bite us, but we literally have to go to her mouth and pry it off in the middle of the attack. I am going to try to find a vet behavioralist and my uncle is a vet, but lives 3 hours away. I live in Philly so it shouldn't be too hard.
We spoke with the shelter and they even told us the puppy has extreme low self-esteem and she is submissive and so she doesn't understand why Maria saw her as a threat. (but I feel its just because there's another dog in the house)
AHHH! This has had extreme stress on our marriage. We fight, but because of this we've been stressed all the time and it's really taking a toll on everything.
This is kind of naive. There is an overpopulation problem in this country, and millions of animals with NO history of aggression toward dogs or people are euthanized daily because there are not enough homes.
Besides, the dog is 8 years old. I'm assuming you've had her most of her life. It would be almost as cruel to ship her off to a new home now as to send her to a shelter.
You are very lucky to be in Philadelphia. There are three vet behaviorists listed on the site below (Villanova, Media, and Delaware County), plus the Behavioral Clinic at UPenn. You could ask your vet if they have any recommendations and call to see who has the first available appointment.
Maria could definitely need a higher dose of anti-anxiety meds, or a different med or combination of meds might be more effective. Most vets (including probably your uncle if he is a general practitioner) aren't comfortable with very high doses or combinations of medicine. It's just not their area of expertise. You'll save a lot of time (and probably money because you won't need so many vet visits and trial and error with meds) by going to a vet behaviorist. Regular behaviorists (not vets) can be helpful as well, but some dogs won't respond to behavioral modification until their anxiety is under control with medication.
It often takes a little while to get an appointment with a vet behaviorist (because there are so few of them), so once you get that appointment, I would consider getting your regular vet to run a basic blood panel/do a physical exam just to see if there are any obvious problems (like her thyroid). Then the vet behaviorist can use that information to rule out any medical issues as well.
Find a vet behaviorist:
http://www.dacvb.org/resources/find/
The UPenn behavioral clinic:
http://www.vet.upenn.edu/RyanVHUPforSmallAnimalPatients/SpecialtyCareServices/BehavioralMedicine/tabid/431/Default.aspx
Oh, I didn't realize you were in Philly!
Alison Seward, a behaviorist at UPenn, is fabulous - she does behavior presentations and demos at the animal shelter where I volunteer.
Do you mind if I ask who you spoke to before? PM me if you'd like.
I'm glad the regulars came and gave you some great advice!
I'd also suggest crate and rotate for now. Kuddos to you for continuing to take on this challenge and seeking help. I hope the vet behaviorist mentioned above may be able to help you!
FF
As someone who has lived with separated herds over the years, I can tell you firsthand that sometimes dogs just will not sort out their pack orders and live together. It is weird that she would attack a puppy so severely, though, so I would be very concerned about trying the two together. If Maria is ok with Biscuit, maybe adding a 3rd dog is just too much for her.
At one point, my parents had 7 dogs, 2 males and 5 females (they were Boxer breeders/trainers) in the house: a male who could not be with the rest of the dogs (he had a heart problem that would give him pain when he was excited, and he seemed to associate that pain with the other dogs), two female who hated each other, and the alpha *** hated the other male. The other two got along with all but the one male who had to be alone all the time. So it was a juggling act and we had to be very aware of which "pack" was living where (pretty much meant we had to keep the dogs in 3 separate areas). They have a 5,000 square foot house, including an entire floor set up for the dogs/kennels, so it was easy for them to rotate the packs around without having to crate anyone for an extended length of time.
I will say this though, regardless of issues in the pack, they were FINE with dogs outside the house and never, ever bit or threatened in any way a person. Granted, my parents were very on top of training and socializing their dogs, and they were very well-behaved and friendly, despite some could not live together. Just because a dog is dog aggressive does not mean they are a threat to a person. I agree with being safe/cautious, especially if you are bringing a baby in, absolutely. I have a friend with a Pitt who is dog and people aggressive. She wants to have a baby and has no idea if possible due to her dog-not only concerned how dog could be to the baby, but it would be bad situation when baby has friends over, etc.
Since Finnish Spitz are not known to be aggressive, it's definitely worth trying to figure out what the issue is, if it's more about something physical or loss of control in her pack, or if she truly is not a trustworthy dog. We once had a behaviorist come in who recommended muzzling and letting the dogs "work it out" themselves. VERY bad idea in our case. I'd eliminate all potential physical issues 1st before trying a behaviorist, but I'd also accept the fact Maria and puppy may not ever co-exist. If Maria likes Biscuit and all is well, why push it?
Good luck!!