I'll try to be as detailed as possible. Any questions please ask.
I have two female GSD. The oldest Athena is about 6, and the youngest Luna is about 3. Both females. Luna is a solid 100 pounds and is bigger than Athena, however Athena up until recently had always been the dominate one. Athena has never played too well with other dogs. She is just concerned on what I'm doing. She was always very dependent on us so when we got a bigger place we thought we would get another one for her to have someone to play with as Athena is very hyper active.
At first everything went great. They played a little, but Athena likes to rough house and play kind of rough. Luna was always so submissive and never really liked to play like that. Over time, Athena kind of bullied Luna. We tried to correct that situation, and over time things got better with that. However, once Luna got bigger and realized her own strength, they played together less and less, and eventually she started to push back when Athena would confront her. This led to fighting. In the beginning it wasn't too bad, they were mostly pushing and shoving. They looked and sounded aggressive as ****, but nothing ever happened. Was mostly slobber. But it looks and sounds like they are fighting to the death. But they would stop if me and my wife got up and left the room.
We tried lot of different things as far as being better leaders and seeing what was causing these fights and preventing them from happening before they started. Months would go by without ever having a incident. In September last year, we moved and the fights have gotten worse. Luna now never plays with Athena and she has started to initiate the fights. They also will not stop if we leave the room now. Last weekend we had a house sitter and they went at it for a while. Luna pins Athena to the ground and had her mouth over Athena's throat. Eventually when Athena was able to get up she defended herself and cut Luna wide open on her face. Luna had to go see a emergency vet for stitches. Athena was unharmed.
Today another fight broke out. This time my wife was home. Luna approached Athena and started it. She could not stop it and the fight went for several minutes. Again, the same thing happened. Luna pinned Athena down, but when Athena got up she once again hurt Luna with a scratch to her face.
They were split up. Athena kept going to the door and wanting to see Luna. When they finally got back together, Athena went to check on Luna and she was not having any of it. Was obvious Luna was pissed and did not want to be around Athena. I had to separate them again, just by the way Luna was acting.
I understand that this is a dominance issue. Athena has always been dominate over Luna, but now Luna is challenging her. The fights are getting worse but still neither of them is actually biting to hurt or kill one another, not yet. But accidents keep happening and it's only a matter of time. The best I can judge the situation is that Luna does not like Athena and basically just puts up with her. Does anyone have any suggestions. I plan on contacting a trainer tomorrow, but I really don't want to spend thousands of dollars for help if there just going to do it again a year from now. A trainer maybe can fix the dominace, but can they really make each dog like each other and make them want to play with one another? I feel like that's a reach and it would only been a matter of time before something like this starts happening again.
Re-homing Luna is a last resort that I really don't want to do. She is such a sweet dog to us and other people. She has never shown any aggression towards other dogs or animals.
I have two female GSD. The oldest Athena is about 6, and the youngest Luna is about 3. Both females. Luna is a solid 100 pounds and is bigger than Athena, however Athena up until recently had always been the dominate one. Athena has never played too well with other dogs. She is just concerned on what I'm doing. She was always very dependent on us so when we got a bigger place we thought we would get another one for her to have someone to play with as Athena is very hyper active.
At first everything went great. They played a little, but Athena likes to rough house and play kind of rough. Luna was always so submissive and never really liked to play like that. Over time, Athena kind of bullied Luna. We tried to correct that situation, and over time things got better with that. However, once Luna got bigger and realized her own strength, they played together less and less, and eventually she started to push back when Athena would confront her. This led to fighting. In the beginning it wasn't too bad, they were mostly pushing and shoving. They looked and sounded aggressive as ****, but nothing ever happened. Was mostly slobber. But it looks and sounds like they are fighting to the death. But they would stop if me and my wife got up and left the room.
We tried lot of different things as far as being better leaders and seeing what was causing these fights and preventing them from happening before they started. Months would go by without ever having a incident. In September last year, we moved and the fights have gotten worse. Luna now never plays with Athena and she has started to initiate the fights. They also will not stop if we leave the room now. Last weekend we had a house sitter and they went at it for a while. Luna pins Athena to the ground and had her mouth over Athena's throat. Eventually when Athena was able to get up she defended herself and cut Luna wide open on her face. Luna had to go see a emergency vet for stitches. Athena was unharmed.
Today another fight broke out. This time my wife was home. Luna approached Athena and started it. She could not stop it and the fight went for several minutes. Again, the same thing happened. Luna pinned Athena down, but when Athena got up she once again hurt Luna with a scratch to her face.
They were split up. Athena kept going to the door and wanting to see Luna. When they finally got back together, Athena went to check on Luna and she was not having any of it. Was obvious Luna was pissed and did not want to be around Athena. I had to separate them again, just by the way Luna was acting.
I understand that this is a dominance issue. Athena has always been dominate over Luna, but now Luna is challenging her. The fights are getting worse but still neither of them is actually biting to hurt or kill one another, not yet. But accidents keep happening and it's only a matter of time. The best I can judge the situation is that Luna does not like Athena and basically just puts up with her. Does anyone have any suggestions. I plan on contacting a trainer tomorrow, but I really don't want to spend thousands of dollars for help if there just going to do it again a year from now. A trainer maybe can fix the dominace, but can they really make each dog like each other and make them want to play with one another? I feel like that's a reach and it would only been a matter of time before something like this starts happening again.
Re-homing Luna is a last resort that I really don't want to do. She is such a sweet dog to us and other people. She has never shown any aggression towards other dogs or animals.