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Pupforum presents your training questions answered by professional dog trainers.
Jean is a graduate of Animal Behavior College and teaches basic obedience using positive motivation training techniques. She is a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and has been teaching family dog basic obedience for three years. Jean is also a graduate of Northeastern University and is the co-founder of pupforum.com.
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[Edit]
12/21/2004
I have a question in regards to what I think are two females wanting to be alpha dogs in the
same home. I recently came across someone that has two yorkie girls that are sisters and
about a year old. They are both spayed and have always gotten along until recently. Now all
the sudden, in the last couple of months, they are fighting a lot and will fight until they
are broken up. To me it sounds like they are competing for the role of alpha dog. Can these
girls continue to live together, peacefully? (carrie, Washington)
I think you are exactly right about competing for the role of alpha dog.
They are at exactly the right age to realize that there needs to be an alpha
among them. As hard as it is to watch, the general rule in this situation is to
let them work it out amongst themselves. As long as neither is going hungry or bleeding,
there should be no human interference. They will need to work this out eventually,
and human interference will only prolong the process. It m
ay take several weeks or months,
but considering the fact that they have been together since birth, it is highly unlikely to
become a permanent problem.
If they are breaking skin, or one is preventing the other from eating, they will need constant supervision
and to be separated when they can not be supervised. Just to clarify, when I say "preventing the other from eating," I mean preventing the other from eating anything at all. Part of the normal alpha struggle may be to growl and be generally rude to each other while food is around. Let this go unless one dog is getting nothing to eat at all. If they are still fighting and breaking skin even when supervised, tether them both in the same room where they can see each other but not get to each other until they learn to stop it. This may take several days or weeks, and I know it feels like an exercise in cruelty, but just remind yourself that they will indeed learn to live together. As long as the human is understood to be the true pack leader, the pack will learn to fall in.
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