# Amaya Attacking Kuso



## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

Okay, so a few weeks ago, Amaya started attacking Kuso. We had three incidents in two days. One that lasted ALMOST a minute while I scrambled to open the window to scream at them, another that happened RIGHT in front of my face, and then one over food. 

The first one, I don't know what happened, just that it lasted quite a while, and Kuso was fighting back, but screaming, and at the time I didn't know, but now I'm pretty sure that Amaya attacked him. 

Then the one that happened right in front of my face, I don't know what happened. I was playing with a toy between them, and all of a sudden there was teeth flashing and nasty snarling. I broke it up right away, and I'm pretty sure Amaya started it (it just happened so fast that I couldn't tell). 

Then the one over food, I was cleaning out the fridge and had a container of turkey sitting on the ground. Amaya nosed off the lid and Kuso came to investigate. Amaya immediately attacked him, and Kuso did nothing to defend himself, but just screamed his head off.

Since then, there hasn't been a problem, except a few growls and angry faces (Amaya to Kuso). Well, tonight I was driving home and had Adam on the phone. All of a sudden, I'm hearing screaming, Adam yells "HEY!" and he accidentally hangs up on me. Apparently, for absolutely no reason at all, Amaya attacked Kuso. Now, I can't say this is exactly what happened, but that's what he said, no toys or food involved, apparently.

I've seen Amaya play with Kuso, and I've seen her turn her back on him when she doesn't want to play. I've seen her join in on picking on him, instigate picking on him, but all play. Kuso has been caught several times humping her, and has also displayed aggression towards her when he has food and she's in her crate next to him (so basically for no other reason to just start growling and snapping).

So anyways, I'm at a loss of what to do here. I'm not going to get rid of either of them, but how can I train Amaya not to attack Kuso? Especially when 99% of the time she is fine with him?


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## CorgiPaws (Mar 31, 2009)

I would say first and foremost: eliminate the trigger. 

If she's attacking him over food, never have food with them together. 
If she's attacking him over toys, play with toys one on one rather than between the both of them. 

Not all dogs are going to be happy about any and every situation (sharing food, toys, etc) and there are ways to work with this, but in general, I would try to avoid the situations altogether.

I would also do some Nothing In Life is Free training with Amaya. Make her work for her food, just like you've done with Kuso. Make her work for her toys. Make her see that she's not entitled to everything she wants. With that being said, she's a dog. Her natural instincts tell her to protect her food from other dogs. Once you hand her food, no one should be near her, unless you give a successful "Drop It" command first. 


Slightly off topic: I really hate it when people say "Oh he's so good, I can take the food right out of his mouth." What the heck are people doing taking food out of their dog's mouths? Have they no respect?! Any time I need to get something from my dogs, I give a "drop it" command. If this doesn't work with your dog ("your" used to refer to anyone, not the OP) then perhaps it's time to go back to basic training!


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## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

CorgiPaws said:


> If she's attacking him over food, never have food with them together.
> If she's attacking him over toys, play with toys one on one rather than between the both of them.


Amaya doesn't really play with toys. Since getting Kuso, I can't even get her interested... I was actually squeaking the toy in her face trying to get her to play with it, and Kuso came up, and I didn't think too much about it, but continued to try to play with Amaya. So I can understand the fact that she snapped at him, but that's not to say I'll tolerate it. As for food, I feed them in their crates, so they're never really together with food. He does run into her crate when I'm trying to give her the food, though, and I always pull him out. And I didn't think about it with the food sitting on the ground, because I thought the lid was on tight, AND they had been helping me clean up together. (I had turkeys in the fridge and didn't realize they were leaking, and they leaked blood all over the back and bottom of the fridge, so they were helping clean).



CorgiPaws said:


> Not all dogs are going to be happy about any and every situation (sharing food, toys, etc) and there are ways to work with this, but in general, I would try to avoid the situations altogether.


I'll definitely try to avoid the situations from now on.



CorgiPaws said:


> I would also do some Nothing In Life is Free training with Amaya. Make her work for her food, just like you've done with Kuso. Make her work for her toys. Make her see that she's not entitled to everything she wants. With that being said, she's a dog. Her natural instincts tell her to protect her food from other dogs. Once you hand her food, no one should be near her, unless you give a successful "Drop It" command first.


I actually have been doing this with her. I've been cutting up her food once a day and giving it to her in pieces, making her sit, lay down, stay, then come when I call. It's actually proving to be a big hassle, because she's lost a LOT of interest in food and there have been several nights where she's only got, like, two pieces, because she just plum gets bored and doesn't want to listen. So I've taken the food and put it away. Also, Ryou ran up to her last night and stuck his nose in her face and she just continue to eat like nothing was happening. If Kuso comes near her, she gets REALLY stand-offish and aggressive.



CorgiPaws said:


> Slightly off topic: I really hate it when people say "Oh he's so good, I can take the food right out of his mouth." What the heck are people doing taking food out of their dog's mouths? Have they no respect?! Any time I need to get something from my dogs, I give a "drop it" command. If this doesn't work with your dog ("your" used to refer to anyone, not the OP) then perhaps it's time to go back to basic training!


 I hope nothing I said gave you this opinion. Just wondering, though, why DID this come up?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

How old are these dogs and how long have they been living together? Has there been any blood during these altercations?


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

I had a female chow who became more dog aggressive the older she got. She was fine with her sisters until she got about 2 years old. Then they would have the occassional fight. The fights got worse and more frequent as she got older until there was always blood drawn. 

We tried a variety of training things but in the end, keeping her seperated as much as possible was the only thing that worked. I think she was just overstimulated and paranoid and wanted to be alone. Some dogs are like that, just like some people are like that and the best thing for them is to let them have their quiet time. Once we let her be alone, she was a sweetheart. 

I hope you find out what works for your baby before a whole lot of trouble. It's not easy to have dogs that fight. We tried everything when they were fighting, and you just can't physically seperate two chows that are fighting!


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## EnglishBullTerriers (Sep 10, 2008)

Owen and Titus are like this too. It started out with just little things, but now it if full blown agression!! Only towards each other though!! I have had Owen around other dogs, intact and not, and he is fine... as long and they don't walk up to him with the 'fight face' on. 
I agree with Chowder, You might just have to seperate them when they get into one of those situations/modes. I know its hard, but it sounds like they just need a 'time out' or cool down time to recollect themselves and get back to normal.


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## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

RawFedDogs said:


> How old are these dogs and how long have they been living together? Has there been any blood during these altercations?


Amaya is ten months old, Kuso is four months old, and they've been together for about a month.

As for everyone else, it sounds more like dominance issues between same gender dogs. DX My friend had that problem with her two great danes, and they would draw blood every time, too. I had to separate them once, and one of them had a great big cut on her upper gums the bled PROFUSELY! It was scary. They were just fighting for dominance, though. Amaya and Kuso are two different genders.

Also, if it makes any difference, we did get Kuso while Amaya was in heat, and she just finished, like, two weeks ago. It usually makes her EXTREMELY cranky...


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## EnglishBullTerriers (Sep 10, 2008)

xxshaelxx said:


> Amaya is ten months old, Kuso is four months old, and they've been together for about a month.
> 
> As for everyone else, it sounds more like dominance issues between same gender dogs. DX My friend had that problem with her two great danes, and they would draw blood every time, too. I had to separate them once, and one of them had a great big cut on her upper gums the bled PROFUSELY! It was scary. They were just fighting for dominance, though. Amaya and Kuso are two different genders.
> 
> Also, if it makes any difference, we did get Kuso while Amaya was in heat, and she just finished, like, two weeks ago. It usually makes her EXTREMELY cranky...


You should def. keep them in seperate corners when she is in heat unles you are breeding them. If not then you will end up with either puppies, or fights. 
I don't care if you spay/neuter, everyone has different stands on that, but if you are keeping them intact, when she is in heat, keep them apart. I have a friend that has a house of 1 intact male pitt, 1 intact female pitt and 1 intact male pomeranian and they are all 'ok' until she goes into heat. Then all three have to be in seperate corners until she is over it. Then all is back to normal.


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## CorgiPaws (Mar 31, 2009)

xxshaelxx said:


> I hope nothing I said gave you this opinion. Just wondering, though, why DID this come up?


Nope nope, nope... not directed at you, or anytone in particular.

Just rossed my mind in reference to aggression over food. A lot of times I post things for "lurkers" rather than strictly to OP's. Sorry if there was any confusion. :redface:


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## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

EnglishBullTerriers said:


> You should def. keep them in seperate corners when she is in heat unles you are breeding them. If not then you will end up with either puppies, or fights.
> I don't care if you spay/neuter, everyone has different stands on that, but if you are keeping them intact, when she is in heat, keep them apart. I have a friend that has a house of 1 intact male pitt, 1 intact female pitt and 1 intact male pomeranian and they are all 'ok' until she goes into heat. Then all three have to be in seperate corners until she is over it. Then all is back to normal.


Um....I only have one intact dog. Kuso came neutered because he was from a shelter, and Ryou got neutered early on, because we were still undecided about whether or not to breed Amaya. The only intact dog at this house (one of my friend's that I'm watching for her) is kept away from my dogs, because he has dog aggression issues around any other dog but my friend's other dog.



CorgiPaws said:


> Nope nope, nope... not directed at you, or anytone in particular.
> 
> Just rossed my mind in reference to aggression over food. A lot of times I post things for "lurkers" rather than strictly to OP's. Sorry if there was any confusion. :redface:


Okay! Phew! I was, like, "OMG! Did I say something?!" haha. The only time I mess with food that way is when training Kuso to be easy, and I hope the food in my hand and tell him to be easy, and if he starts biting my fingers, I pull my hand away and tell him "no." So that way he learns not to snap at my hands! Because it hurts! haha. But the food isn't in his mouth then.


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## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

So I just took all the toys away from the dogs...and oh my goodness, the looks on their faces. hahaha. Priceless! "Mommy, what are you doing with those! We don't want to play with them at all, unless you're taking them away from us!"

They really aren't toy motivated dogs, but yeah, they still have their disagreements over them. And while I was at the vet getting my mom's cat her allergy shot and bloodwork, I read an article in a magazine about a lady who owned an older Sibe and rescued a nine month old Sibe, and the nine month old had toy/food aggression. She used the "nothing in life is free" method of feeding to train the food aggression out of him, and for the toys, she spread them all out in the living room so that the nine month old couldn't possibly protect them all from the older dog, and whenever he was eyeballing the older girl, she would distract him with another toy.

So, basically, I'm going to take all of the toys away from them and only have supervised play sessions with them. I'm going to deprive them of toys to make it so, when they toys do come out, it's a treat, and they get all excited and WANT to play with them. See if that does anything for them.


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## Khan (Jan 17, 2010)

Both these dogs are fairly young. Amaya has just probably started to understand good dog behavior, while Kuso is still in that "Puppy" stage. He is probably right in her face. I don't mean because there is a toy or food around. Puppies just don't understand the "my space" concept. It could just be her "telling" him get out of my space/face. If she's been in heat, then I'm sure that is 10x's more the attitude taking over.
We have an older Westie who is always present in the puppy and junior classes. This little dog will tell anyone of them to respect her space if needed. This is as controlled as it can be when you're dealing with 2 dogs, there's never any bloodshed, but lots of noise! May just be that Amaya is teaching Kuso boundaries.


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## EnglishBullTerriers (Sep 10, 2008)

xxshaelxx said:


> Um....I only have one intact dog. Kuso came neutered because he was from a shelter, and Ryou got neutered early on, because we were still undecided about whether or not to breed Amaya. The only intact dog at this house (one of my friend's that I'm watching for her) is kept away from my dogs, because he has dog aggression issues around any other dog but my friend's other dog.


I didn't mean that all of your dogs were intact... thats just what my friend has. It doesn't matter if the males are intact or not, the only point I was making was that those were the two outcomes that are typical with intact dogs. Like I said, everyone has a differend view point on keeping their dogs intact or not, either way people go is up to that individual. But with her being intact and there being other males in the house... especially a new male, things will change and everything needs to be sorted out, wether by you working with them or by them handeling it themselves.
I think that you going with the 'nothing for free' method is a great way to go. But when your intact female is in heat, they should be seperated because of the hormones running thru her body are much higher then when she isn't in heat. 

I do hope that things work out for you!! I am only sharing my experiences with you. If you don't wish to read them, that is ok with me too.


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## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

EnglishBullTerriers said:


> You should def. keep them in seperate corners when she is in heat unles you are breeding them. If not then you will end up with either puppies, or fights.


What you originally said was that she would end up with puppies or getting into fights. I was stating that she's not going to end up with puppies, because the other two are not intact. It's kind of rude to assume that I'm going to let my dog get pregnant from negligence by letting her run around with intact dogs.


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## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

Khan said:


> Both these dogs are fairly young. Amaya has just probably started to understand good dog behavior, while Kuso is still in that "Puppy" stage. He is probably right in her face. I don't mean because there is a toy or food around. Puppies just don't understand the "my space" concept. It could just be her "telling" him get out of my space/face. If she's been in heat, then I'm sure that is 10x's more the attitude taking over.
> We have an older Westie who is always present in the puppy and junior classes. This little dog will tell anyone of them to respect her space if needed. This is as controlled as it can be when you're dealing with 2 dogs, there's never any bloodshed, but lots of noise! May just be that Amaya is teaching Kuso boundaries.


Well, that's what Rachel (Rannmiller) said when I asked her, but she told me to just let them fight it out, that sometimes dogs have these little disagreements. The only problem is, though, that Amaya doesn't stop, like the incident where it seemed to go on forever before I hung myself out the window, beat on the side of the house, and screamed at them to stop.

I've had Amaya and Ryou have these little disagreements before, and once where Amaya did get a small knick on her face, but they were always over within seconds, literally before I could even DO anything.

So, when Amaya does attack Kuso (out of nowhere), should I just let her continue unless she starts to draw blood? Should I interject if she doesn't stop after about ten-fifteen seconds? Should I stop it right away if Kuso starts screaming? And what should I do with Amaya afterwards? I don't want her becoming dominant.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that Kuso doesn't KNOW how to get out of your face. Whenever I come down to their level to give them attention, he's SO in my face. Is there any way I can teach him to stop this myself? I mean, I don't want to attack him because he's all up in mah biznez. XP Sorry, had to. But anyways, if that's how dogs teach other dogs to get out of their faces, how do I do it? And is there any way I can teach him to get out of Amaya's face?

Also, I will be getting Amaya spayed as soon as I can come up with the money. Lately it's been REALLY slow at work, and my husband hasn't been getting hours at his work, so he's going to get a second job, and that's the first thing on our priority list.


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## malluver1005 (Nov 15, 2009)

xxshaelxx said:


> Well, that's what Rachel (Rannmiller) said when I asked her, but she told me to just let them fight it out, that sometimes dogs have these little disagreements. The only problem is, though, that Amaya doesn't stop, like the incident where it seemed to go on forever before I hung myself out the window, beat on the side of the house, and screamed at them to stop.


I agree with Rann, just let them fight it out. That is how puppies learn. Most likely Kuso is in her space too much, and she doesn't like it. Let Amaya teach Kuso the rules. Sometimes there has to be bloodshed.

Let me give you an example with Aspen. I took him over to a friend's house so he could meet his dogs. He has a husky/samoyed and an australian cattle dog mix. Both females. The australian cattle dog is a little b****. She will challenge any dog she comes in contact with. Doesn't matter how big the dog is. She's as dominant as a dog can get. She's 5 years old. I asked him "do you think it's a good idea they meet?" and he said yeah they will be fine. Well, we took the dogs to the dog park. They were fine for the first half hour. Then Xena, the cattle dogs name, came up to Aspen and a fight broke out immediately. It was over in about 5 seconds. She never comes up to Aspen again. She did get a few bites on her lip. But she learned her lesson.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

I think this is something they have to work out themselves. The less you intefere the better. No matter how bad we want to, humans just can't control the outcomes of these relationships.


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## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

Okay. I'll try to let them work it out themselves. It's just natural instinct to break them up. I'll have to hold myself back unless things just get out of hand.


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## Khan (Jan 17, 2010)

xxshaelxx said:


> Okay. I'll try to let them work it out themselves. It's just natural instinct to break them up. I'll have to hold myself back unless things just get out of hand.


I'm sure it will sound WAAY worse then it really is. I agree with RFD, the less we interfere the better. Once they work this out, it will be done. They will have learned their place and boundaries with each other, and life will go on.

Our training class has open play about once a month. Khan for some reason did NOT like this one dog. She was about 5 months,and he was 7 months. He played with every dog except her. He wanted to take her out!  They had a scuffle or two, where she ended up pinned on the ground with him holding her neck! No bloodshed, but he made tons of noise I had never heard before! We used an Air Horn to break them up. It was a couple loud burst that made him stop and look up so we could let them "go to their corners" and calm down a little. We obviously kept a close eye on HIM, since he was the one with "the problem" Funny thing was that after this incident he left her alone. He could have cared less about what she did and she stayed away from him!


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## t0nnn (Apr 1, 2009)

Hey about the spay, a friend at work that just had her dogs done used a certificate from this organization. Search your zipcode for participating vets/clinics, call and make sure they still accept it and that's it.

It's $90 for a female, I got the certificate last week (it came in 3 days) and booking an appointment today. That's all i'm getting charged too. Some vets will charge some on top of that, but the one my friend used and i'm using doesn't.

just a suggestion...I can't afford $400+ for a spay either, this is great and it counts as a donation to the foundation.

Friends of Animals | Spay and Neuter Certificate Information


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## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

t0nnn said:


> Hey about the spay, a friend at work that just had her dogs done used a certificate from this organization. Search your zipcode for participating vets/clinics, call and make sure they still accept it and that's it.
> 
> It's $90 for a female, I got the certificate last week (it came in 3 days) and booking an appointment today. That's all i'm getting charged too. Some vets will charge some on top of that, but the one my friend used and i'm using doesn't.
> 
> ...


Actually, Spays/neuters out here seem to be cheaper. Ryou's was $120, and I was quoted $185 for the clinic that Rachel (rannmiller) works at. I've made an appointment for tomorrow already. Might get some kind of discount, being Rachel's friend (I did for kitty x-rays! XDD). Can't hurt, though, so I'll definitely look into it. Thanks a bunches!!!

EDIT - Bleh...no participating vets in my area. Shucks.


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