social ranking/dominance

[imported_Jen]

Hello. I have a 9 month old spayed female lab mix, a 7 year old spayed female husky/golden mix and a 6 year old spayed female shep mix. Now, I am always told that are situation is somewhat of an anomaly as we have always had females only! Our oldest 2 dogs apparently hate male dogs, as we discovered when we adopted our pup - I have repeatedly been told that our family shouldn't work - we should have lots of fights and aggression - go figure!

Anyways, the problem that we are having is that our pup does not seem to comprehend that she is low dog on the totem pole. Her problem is not with us - but - with the other dogs! They routinely dominate her, in what I feel to be an acceptable manner, and she seems to understand it for a couple minutes and then - poof - it's gone. She tries to mount the other dogs, puts her front paws on their shoulders, etc and the bickering begins again. Up until now we have had zero problems but I think that perhaps the puppy was given "carte blanche" by the other dogs in consideration of her age(she was 4 months old when we adopted her) - and that time seems to be over! Will she ever "get" this? Our other 2 dogs are very well socialized and are very patient...but....the y get tired of her behavior. We've had 2 serious fights in the last month, albeit very short lived fights and no one was hurt - mostly just a lot of noise and teeth. Are we facing a bad future? As I said, we've never had problems before and I hate to think that this is the best relationship that they will have - I also worry about this escalating into something harmful. Any chance that our pup is just still pushing the limits? Sorry for such a long post and thanks in advance to anyone who can help! Jen

[Melissa Brunoehler]

Hi Jen~

It's not uncommon for a pup at this age to start this type of behavior. It sounds like you've got 3 middle ranking dogs squabling for position. This is quite common since, the majority of dogs are middle ranking, actual "Alphas" are few & far between.
I would work on giving the dogs as much structure as possible. A great way to do this is to put all dogs on the NOthing in Life is free program(NILIF). I think there are instuctions to NILIF on the site. If you can't find them, let me know.

What do you mean by they routinely dominate her? Can you give us examples of what they do & when?

Watch your dogs, any time it looks like any of the dogs are going to bully another dog by mounting or something similar, step in. Get your dogs attention & distract them with something else, have them do some sits or downs for little peices of treats or play a game with them.

And try to avoid situations in which the bullying behaviors are likely to occur.

Hope this helps.

Hello. I have a 9 month old spayed female lab mix, a 7 year old spayed female husky/golden mix and a 6 year old spayed female shep mix. Now, I am always told that are situation is somewhat of an anomaly as we have always had females only! Our oldest 2 dogs apparently hate male dogs, as we discovered when we adopted our pup - I have repeatedly been told that our family shouldn't work - we should have lots of fights and aggression - go figure!

Anyways, the problem that we are having is that our pup does not seem to comprehend that she is low dog on the totem pole. Her problem is not with us - but - with the other dogs! They routinely dominate her, in what I feel to be an acceptable manner, and she seems to understand it for a couple minutes and then - poof - it's gone. She tries to mount the other dogs, puts her front paws on their shoulders, etc and the bickering begins again. Up until now we have had zero problems but I think that perhaps the puppy was given "carte blanche" by the other dogs in consideration of her age(she was 4 months old when we adopted her) - and that time seems to be over! Will she ever "get" this? Our other 2 dogs are very well socialized and are very patient...but....the y get tired of her behavior. We've had 2 serious fights in the last month, albeit very short lived fights and no one was hurt - mostly just a lot of noise and teeth. Are we facing a bad future? As I said, we've never had problems before and I hate to think that this is the best relationship that they will have - I also worry about this escalating into something harmful. Any chance that our pup is just still pushing the limits? Sorry for such a long post and thanks in advance to anyone who can help! Jen

[imported_Jen]

Hi Melissa - Thanks for you response! I feel that we apparently are one of thew few who do have an Alpha dog! She is our husky/golden mix and she has always been the top dog. They all seem to follow her lead and with the exception of the pup, they move out of her way, she eats first etc....What I meant when I said they try to dominate her is that when the pup tries to steal their toys or mount them, they pin her to the ground and stand over her.Sometimes they mount her, but, she refuses to accept it. They are always supervised by me so I can put a stop to anything that seems to be getting out of hand.The husky/golden and the shep mix never have these problems - they know their "rank" and get along wonderfully - now it seems like they are trying to establish this rank at the same time with the puppy - it must be confusing!Our pup is very loving and sweet and HYPER! But...she's also as bright as a rock! I mean that in the most loving way though! :D I find that I have similar problems of her not "getting it" with our training, too. Perhaps, I am hoping, this is just another stage of growing up that will soon pass....however, as I said before, we've never gone through this before, even as we added dogs to our original group. Maybe we just got lucky before! I found what you wrote about not letting anyone mount another interesting.....does this mean that we should not allow this in normal play behavior either? Could our pup be interpreting all of it as play? Wouldn't this all end if she just accepted her role as the "low" dog? Thank you again for your help!We just want all of them to feel happy and comfortable and loved!

[Melissa Brunoehler]

Hi again Jen~

There should be one “Top Dog” In the house & that should be the you (& the other humans). There is no need to feed one dog before another. Like I said before, put the dogs on NILIF & the dog that sits(or downs or goes into his crate)first gets fed first. What I meant by true Alpha is that a real Alpha ( & I don’t even like to use that term b/c it has been so misused in the past) does not bully other dogs nor do they get into petty squabbles, they control the resources. That is where NILIF comes in, your dogs should view you as their benevolent leader & supplier of all good things. Were you able to find the info on NILIF?

And yes, try to stop & redirect all controlling/ mounting behavior from any of the dogs.

What kind of training are you doing with her? If she isn’t getting it, I’d be happy to help you with it.

If you have any other questions, please ask.

Hi Melissa - Thanks for you response! I feel that we apparently are one of thew few who do have an Alpha dog! She is our husky/golden mix and she has always been the top dog. They all seem to follow her lead and with the exception of the pup, they move out of her way, she eats first etc....What I meant when I said they try to dominate her is that when the pup tries to steal their toys or mount them, they pin her to the ground and stand over her.Sometimes they mount her, but, she refuses to accept it. They are always supervised by me so I can put a stop to anything that seems to be getting out of hand.The husky/golden and the shep mix never have these problems - they know their "rank" and get along wonderfully - now it seems like they are trying to establish this rank at the same time with the puppy - it must be confusing!Our pup is very loving and sweet and HYPER! But...she's also as bright as a rock! I mean that in the most loving way though! :D I find that I have similar problems of her not "getting it" with our training, too. Perhaps, I am hoping, this is just another stage of growing up that will soon pass....however, as I said before, we've never gone through this before, even as we added dogs to our original group. Maybe we just got lucky before! I found what you wrote about not letting anyone mount another interesting.....does this mean that we should not allow this in normal play behavior either? Could our pup be interpreting all of it as play? Wouldn't this all end if she just accepted her role as the "low" dog? Thank you again for your help!We just want all of them to feel happy and comfortable and loved!

[imported_Jen]

Hi Melissa! Thanks for more advice! Ok....I think that I understand what you are saying now...sometimes it's hard to grasp a concept when you're reading it! We don't feed our husky mix first, she just pushes the others out when she wants to eat. We have, however, always honored seniority though, just because it seems to make sense. She gets treats first and first dibs on the bed (when invited), etc. If I'm understanding you correctly.....by me reinforcing MY alpha role I will be "deleting" their squabbles and competition because I will be the only leader. We are using NILIF with the puppy, not the older dogs because they are pretty well trained and obedient, but I suppose only good can come of using it with them also! I think that for the puppy it's probably a matter of patience and consistency. She just seems to take a lot longer to catch on to things, partially because it's so hard for her to sit still and focus. But you can see it in her face that she really wants to do what we are asking! She's so proud when she does follow a command - it's just precious! Am I understanding your advice correctly? Also, if you don't mind, as you can tell by what I have been writing, I have always been told that dogs must have a pack number and that I have to honor that rank. Is this not true? If I re-establish myself as number one, I still don't really understand what that does to their own dog order, if anything. Will it just make them all be "middle" dogs, or just simply dogs? Thanks again so much - this is really going to help us out!!!!! Jen

[Melissa Brunoehler]

Hi Jen~ Unfortanately I'm about to walk out the door so this is going to be a little rushed. I can not gaurantee NILIF will stop sqaubbles, but it should have an overall positive effect on the dogs. In my house I find pushy behavior (from dogs & people!) rude. So guess what, the pushy one gets ignored & the calm pup gets the reward.

Read this article http://www.clickersolutions .com/articles/2001/dominance.htm
I think that it help to explain what I'm getting at & help to answer your questions.
Hi Melissa! Thanks for more advice! Ok....I think that I understand what you are saying now...sometimes it's hard to grasp a concept when you're reading it! We don't feed our husky mix first, she just pushes the others out when she wants to eat. We have, however, always honored seniority though, just because it seems to make sense. She gets treats first and first dibs on the bed (when invited), etc. If I'm understanding you correctly.....by me reinforcing MY alpha role I will be "deleting" their squabbles and competition because I will be the only leader. We are using NILIF with the puppy, not the older dogs because they are pretty well trained and obedient, but I suppose only good can come of using it with them also! I think that for the puppy it's probably a matter of patience and consistency. She just seems to take a lot longer to catch on to things, partially because it's so hard for her to sit still and focus. But you can see it in her face that she really wants to do what we are asking! She's so proud when she does follow a command - it's just precious! Am I understanding your advice correctly? Also, if you don't mind, as you can tell by what I have been writing, I have always been told that dogs must have a pack number and that I have to honor that rank. Is this not true? If I re-establish myself as number one, I still don't really understand what that does to their own dog order, if anything. Will it just make them all be "middle" dogs, or just simply dogs? Thanks again so much - this is really going to help us out!!!!! Jen

[imported_Jen]

Melissa...thanks so much! The article you mentioned answered my concerns about the dogs "order" perfectly! I must say that up until now I have been misinformed in this matter. Now everything that you advised makes a lot of sense! Thanks for taking the time to help me out - I truly appreciate it! Jen

[Marthina McClay]

I have a question now after reading these posts.

My dogs (2 females, 1 10month old pit bull, and 25lb 8yr old Pug mix) play and get on top of each other at different times while "chewing" nicely on each other's mouths. They don't ever hump each other at all but my Pit will just get on top of my Pug with her paw on her or something but my Pug likes it and will chew on her mouth for a bit then run so the Pit can chase her (the Pug LOVES to be chased) then they will stop and my Pug with get on top of my Pit and the Pit will also let her do so and lay down or something. Sometimes they are both trying to get on each other but they "break it up" on their own. The Pug will go to a Nylabone and chew and the Pit will say, "Hey, good idea" and chew one herself. Sometimes the Pit being a younger pup will keep it up by nosing my Pug to continue to play a bit, but I think it's just her being a puppy. If my Pug is tired of it she will just as I said above go to a toy and this will invite my Pit to play with a toy as well and they're fine. (They have 2 of everything). This is interesting to me as this is what I would do if they were inappropriate with each other, get a toy and distract them. This seems to be what the older Pug is doing with the younger Pit. They have had NO fights at all at this point and I just want it to stay that way.

Does this seem like appropriate behaviour to you? Should I change anything? My Pit is also in intermediate obedience classes and is doing VERY well.

Thanks for any info.

Marthina

[Melissa Brunoehler]

Hi Marthina~

Sounds like things are going well with your girls,I didn't notice anything that should be changed. Have fun in class & keep up the good work!

~Melissa



I have a question now after reading these posts.

My dogs (2 females, 1 10month old pit bull, and 25lb 8yr old Pug mix) play and get on top of each other at different times while "chewing" nicely on each other's mouths. They don't ever hump each other at all but my Pit will just get on top of my Pug with her paw on her or something but my Pug likes it and will chew on her mouth for a bit then run so the Pit can chase her (the Pug LOVES to be chased) then they will stop and my Pug with get on top of my Pit and the Pit will also let her do so and lay down or something. Sometimes they are both trying to get on each other but they "break it up" on their own. The Pug will go to a Nylabone and chew and the Pit will say, "Hey, good idea" and chew one herself. Sometimes the Pit being a younger pup will keep it up by nosing my Pug to continue to play a bit, but I think it's just her being a puppy. If my Pug is tired of it she will just as I said above go to a toy and this will invite my Pit to play with a toy as well and they're fine. (They have 2 of everything). This is interesting to me as this is what I would do if they were inappropriate with each other, get a toy and distract them. This seems to be what the older Pug is doing with the younger Pit. They have had NO fights at all at this point and I just want it to stay that way.

Does this seem like appropriate behaviour to you? Should I change anything? My Pit is also in intermediate obedience classes and is doing VERY well.

Thanks for any info.

Marthina

[Renee]

The fact that your dogs are changing "roles" (one is on the top, then the other is on the top) is one of the things to look for in fair doggie play...