Mother shows Extreme Dominance Over Daughter

[Farm Flyer]

I have posted this in the General Behaviour Forum but am posting it here as well as it my be a better place.

We have a four and one half year old female with the last of her puppies (abour 61/2 months old) still at home.

In the house mainly she has the habit of suddenly attacking the young dog with a very scary and noisy total dominance approach. Athough it looks and sound viscious she has not drawn blood. It seems like it happens if we pay attention at the wrong time to the pup. The puppy is scared to come into the house and only comes in when Aanii goes out. We have tried very strong corrective methods (a la Cesar M.). She aslo appear contrite when calmed down and may sense she has overstepped.

Any assissistance and guidance would be helpful.

Thank you.

[Castlemaid]

Keep the pup and the mom separated. Always. Now that the pup is over six months old, the "puppy pass" has expired, and is seen by other dogs as an adult, and potential competition. Female on Female aggression is very common in GSDs, and not something that could be trained out. Correcting her after the fact won't do much good.

For the puppy's sake, rehome her ASAP. Growing up in a household where she lives in fear during these important developmental months is going to destroy her self-confidence, and turn her into a mental basket case, possibly dog reactive -

Corrections won't solve your problem, and the pup deserves an environment where she feels safe and confident all the time.

[Samba]

Strong corrections in this regard might help at the moment it occurs and still not stop the problem. There is also the big chance that they can escalate the aggression toward the youngster! I have a dominant female who has no tolerance for other females. There is no "correcting" this. Some femaLes can co-exist. I have had a female who could live with other females. There were never any fights or attacks though. Once the altercations start, it can get dicey. If a big fight hapens, there is likely no going back plus there will be vet bills if you can get them apart. Bitches don't forgive and forget.

[ituneyou]

I had the same problem with my Zena and her 5 month daughter, the pup would be so scared that she would pee on herself when ever the mom would go near her, that was no fights, the mom always went for the troat and drew blood a couple of times, it got to the point that I had a shock collar on the mom when I would be home and have them in separate kennels when I was at work.
Eventually I gave the pup away to a friend and to this day that pup is still terrified of other dogs, so pretty much is a basket case , its a shame she was such a beautiful dog.
I would find a home for the pup before something bad will happen.

[Konotashi]

We have a female lab (13 yrs) and a female pit bull (5 yrs). They cannot be together, period. We have metal gates to keep them apart, because as soon as those bars are gone, a fight breaks out. (Blood, screaming, crying, etc). Not fun. Usually it's my lab starting it, but sometimes the pit is the aggressor. When we first brought Gracie (pit) home as a foster, they got along fine. But I guess she wore out her welcome with Sania, and now they WILL NOT tolerate each other's presence. We won't even try to 'train' them to get along, because it's not going to happen. So we have the metal gates, and when I move out, I'm taking Sania with me so there will be less stress on my mom. (Plus she's my baby).

I would rehome her either before Momma breaks her, or before a serious fight breaks out. If you could keep them separated (as we have with the metal gates), that would be okay too. I wouldn't recommend it though. It's stressful as it is inconvenient. Not to mention it isn't fair to the dogs involved. It's sad when we have one of the girls in the living room, while the other one has to sit in the kitchen by herself until we swap them out. They always lay right next to the gate with their head on the bars, waiting for their turn to have family time.