Hello all, My name is Lisa and I have two Chocolate labs which are brothers from the same liter. Our labs are 7&1/2 years old. They have never been separated and have always slept together in the same crate. Once we say “ go home” for the night they have always slept all night without a peep till morning unless one of them gets sick. After all these years, they have begun fighting. The fighting has been going on A LOT this last week or so. The fights are terrifying and most often end in some kind of blood she’d for one or both of the labs. This whole past week we’ve not been able to crate them at night. Now today during the day crated or not there have been several fights. I just don’t know what’s happening! Why is this happening? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. This makes me nervous and sad.
Hi Lisa, what a worrying problem for you. It sounds as though something has changed in their lives and if you can't think of anything that has happened that might have upset the relationship between the two dogs, then the next step would be a vet check for both of them. Health problems of various kinds can cause aggression or cause a dog to become intolerant of being touched or jostled. I really think you need to get your vet involved here. In the meantime, as a temporary solution, I suggest crating one of the dogs at night or borrowing a second crate so that they can still be together but cannot harm one another.
A vet check to make sure that there isn't an underlying health problem which is causing the problem. Management until the behaviour is resolved is of great importance so seperation of the dogs both day and night to prevent any trigger which results in the fights. This does mean that you may have to keep them in separate rooms, feed separately, exercise separately, sleep separately. Also you need an urgent appointment with a positive, reward based, behaviourist who can assess both boys behaviour and produce a behaviour modification plan. Your vet may be able to recommend someone who will probably ask for a vet referral in any event.
