Rochelle Valdez
05-09-2005, 08:52 PM
Hello to all DoggieBag Online members,
I'm a new member here and this is only my second post. Hopefully you can find this story useful, or maybe you can enlighten me. Thanks so much to the admin for putting up this forum-site after the big crash. I'm still hoping they can ask the Google and Web Archive people for help restoring the pages and getting lost articles. But I digress.
My family used to keep 5 dogs at one point, all mongrels. We turned over the 2 females to a vet who found good people to adopt them.
We were left with 3 males. The eldest was this huge mongrel that was part St. Bernard. (Someone here must know it: it's white with black patches in the eyes and ears, and its head is relatively small compared to its neck and body.) It's a poorly bred dog in my opinion because the poor guy could hardly move. He lived to about 12 years old and then we asked the vet to him to sleep since he could no longer walk. It took the vet 3 injections to make sure. :) Anyway, he is happy in doggie-heaven now.
So we were left with Rocky, a small dog, and Max, a medium-sized, dark-brown dog who is said to have a Lab ancestor. (I'm not sure about that, but he is lean and strongly built.)
Anyway, while Bimbo (the alpha male) was still alive, Rocky and Max behaved themselves. Of course, when he died, Rocky decided to promote himself to alpha male and quarreled with Max.
The fights got so bloody that it was a wonder to EVERYONE that they both survived. They would fight for almost an hour and we did everything we could to stop them and that did not work. The first big fight they had after Bimbo died, they did not talk or move for 2 days.
The vet advised us to separate them so we have made arrangements. We now keep Rocky inside the house while Max is outside. If Rocky has to go outside for any reason, we ask Max to into a shelter and lock him there for a while.
It works most of the time and they haven't fought in months. But if we make the mistake of getting both dogs in the same place, then all hell breaks lose.
What puzzles me is, why is it that these two males grew up together and did not really quarrel for 7 years, but now they do? They have never made up after that big fight. Max, for sure, did not want to make up.
It's just sad because now it is so hot this summer in the Southeast Asia, sometimes we can't let them out at the same time or else they'd fight. :(
I'm a new member here and this is only my second post. Hopefully you can find this story useful, or maybe you can enlighten me. Thanks so much to the admin for putting up this forum-site after the big crash. I'm still hoping they can ask the Google and Web Archive people for help restoring the pages and getting lost articles. But I digress.
My family used to keep 5 dogs at one point, all mongrels. We turned over the 2 females to a vet who found good people to adopt them.
We were left with 3 males. The eldest was this huge mongrel that was part St. Bernard. (Someone here must know it: it's white with black patches in the eyes and ears, and its head is relatively small compared to its neck and body.) It's a poorly bred dog in my opinion because the poor guy could hardly move. He lived to about 12 years old and then we asked the vet to him to sleep since he could no longer walk. It took the vet 3 injections to make sure. :) Anyway, he is happy in doggie-heaven now.
So we were left with Rocky, a small dog, and Max, a medium-sized, dark-brown dog who is said to have a Lab ancestor. (I'm not sure about that, but he is lean and strongly built.)
Anyway, while Bimbo (the alpha male) was still alive, Rocky and Max behaved themselves. Of course, when he died, Rocky decided to promote himself to alpha male and quarreled with Max.
The fights got so bloody that it was a wonder to EVERYONE that they both survived. They would fight for almost an hour and we did everything we could to stop them and that did not work. The first big fight they had after Bimbo died, they did not talk or move for 2 days.
The vet advised us to separate them so we have made arrangements. We now keep Rocky inside the house while Max is outside. If Rocky has to go outside for any reason, we ask Max to into a shelter and lock him there for a while.
It works most of the time and they haven't fought in months. But if we make the mistake of getting both dogs in the same place, then all hell breaks lose.
What puzzles me is, why is it that these two males grew up together and did not really quarrel for 7 years, but now they do? They have never made up after that big fight. Max, for sure, did not want to make up.
It's just sad because now it is so hot this summer in the Southeast Asia, sometimes we can't let them out at the same time or else they'd fight. :(