Hi All we Have 2 10 week old male pups. They are lovely and mischievous together. Unfortunately they fight a lot and get quite aggressive with it, noting til each other squeal but do not let go! Any advice how to stop/calm this. We try the time out and distraction but they are not seeming to help! thanks in advance
I think this is a constant, tricky problem when you have litter mates and I don’t think there is an easy answer. The obvious is to tire them out physically and mentally, and keep them separated at times. However, as they get older the risk is that they really hurt each other, so I guess vigilance is the priority. We have always had more than one dog for many years, but we always left a significant gap to get them trained to a reasonable level and to be honest, avoid the situation you are in. Sorry, to not be much help but hopefully someone on here will have some experience they can share with you.
We have a 14-week old male and an eight-week-old female. We've found that they too seem to “fight, ” when actually they are playing. Yes, they can become what appears to us as aggressive, but we let them go and they work it out. When it becomes too rowdy, we calm them down with a sit command and a treat. As you known, labs are food hounds!!! There's no fur or blood lost during this playtime, which I think shows they are playing. The female is half the weight of the male but really holds her own. After all of this play, they even nap together. Maybe having two males might invoke a dominance issue, and we've seen a little bit of the authority control in the older make, but all in all, they are best friends.
I think there are some really good videos helping describe dog play, what it looks like, consent etc. Have a look at Jane Sigsworth on u tube- especially the dog- dog play part 1 where she explains MARS - all the signals to look out for of good play. They may be helpful in understanding what’s going on a little more?
