Q: My dogs are always fighting with each other - how can I prevent this?

A: This is a really difficult one to answer without seeing your dogs and talking to you and to do so properly would take quite a while and more space than available here. For a fuller answer visit the e-Pet Health Library in All About Your Pet and navigate to Behaviour and then to Dogs-Aggression (Sibling Rivalry). However I'll do my best to summarise the information here.

There are many reasons why dogs will be aggressive to other dogs but the first thing to realise is that dogs are pack animals by nature. Left alone in the wild each pack of dogs will end up having a social structure based on hierarchical dominance - top dog (alpha-male), bottom dog and so on. As long as everyone knows their place - and doesn't stray from this - then all will be fine. But when a lower dog tries to impinge on a higher dog - by trying to take food first for example - then things can turn nasty. In most circumstances the higher dog will put the lower dog back in his place fairly quickly and things resolve. Occasionally the lower dog wins the battle and assumes a new higher place in the social order - again things will calm down once the new hierarchy is established. However sometimes you can have two dogs that both think they are boss - this results in lots of problems.

If you have this problem then the answer is actually a bit different from what you may have imagined. It is important that you re-enforce the pecking order and allow the dog who is the more dominant to become the 'leader' or 'the boss'. You can do this by pushing away the submissive dog to allow the dominant dog have you attention first, by feeding the dominant dog first and even by neutering the submissive dog. You do not punish the dominant dog for trying to exert this dominance - indeed you effectively reward this dominance by for example putting the submissive dog outside if some growling starts. This I know is difficult to believe and even more difficult to do. Our natural instinct would be to punish the 'bully' but dogs are not humans and do not have the same natural social structures we do. Read some articles, talk to your vet or a good dog trainer and be prepared to learn something new and completely different from your natural responses to what you would have considered unacceptable and aggressive behaviour. Dogs think differently!