two females random vicious fights HELP!!

[mylaLylasMom]

HI Guys: Im new to boxer world.... glad to be a part of it, I have 2 fawn females, 5yo : Myla and 1.5yo: Lyla , love them to peices!!!!

I love my girls, and 98% of the time they are good together, best friends, and never leave each others side. But the odd time, usually around food, or closely related to food, they get in a vicious fight that i have to break up or Im scared to see how it would end.(bitch fighting as im reading) Most of the time resulting in my 1.5 year old having a cut or two. I can never really tell who starts it, the 5 year old or the 1.5 year old. After the fight is broken up , they get yelled at, caged, or punished in some way... and 2 seconds later best friends again. I have heard alot of stories about 2 females, and maturity levels, dominance. etc but i feel like There must be something I can do to teach them they are wrong in doing this.they are very smart and listen fairly well. It happens at least once a week.. not ever meal time obviously. but 99% of the fights are around food, whether WE are at the supper table eating.. or im getting their food ready for meal time. They are always fed in separate rooms.. and never around each others dishes.. they are fed at the same time.. and immediatley taken outside one after another. This morning was the most recent fight.. I was dishing up their food ... their dishes on the table.. i had my back turned while getting the food ready and they got into it. No idea what the reason was. I am getting so frusterated. They are so good otherwise, not great with other dogs but thats fine. Not great on the leash to walk .. but we are teaching them. They are the least of my worries. I did have to take all their toys away.. because they always want each others. They do play fight alot and they have alot of fun and never gets too intense. But the vicious fights are so random, and so instant. the puppy will get a stare in her eye when she is cranky.. and they just go at it. I wish i could express how much they love each other 98% of the time when they dont fight. and its not every day... so I just dont know what to do. Im hoping the puppy will grow out of it, I know she is reaching maturity, and im sure its about dominance. Just looking for any ideas, or maybe I just have to live with it. Let me know what you think.... and im not going to get rid of one .. so thats not an option!!

Thanks in advance .. any information is much appreciated !!!

-Confused & Stressed Out

 

[Jan]

Your story is so typical of having 2 female boxers. Your younger bitch is maturing and that is why it is happening now. Bitches will fight to the death, so I would never leave them alone together. You may be able to manage their behavior when you are there, especially with the help of the behaviorist or you may have to keep them separated forever. It can be managed, but it won't be much fun. You really might want to consider rehoming the younger one. I know you don't want to do that, but it would be best for the dogs.

Good luck!

 

[mylaLylasMom]

Thanks your your reply.. Re-homing is not an option. I would be devasted. I can live with it, i was just wondering if there was anything i could be doing different. They are very happy dogs, and very loving. and they dont live separately ever, they are always together and always friendly to eachother .. except for the one random fight every now and then. So i guess I will just hope for the best, and hope it does not last forever.

thanks again

 

[srennie]

I would just tighten up your managment of it. Don't even fix food or eat your own meals while they are in the same room. Separate them with baby gates or crate them any time food is around. The more they practice fighting around food, the more it will become a habit or trigger that when they smell food it will cause a fight.

Another thing you could do is to create a strict routine around feeding time where they have a sit and stay place to be while you are fixing meals. Get their focus on a command to take their focus off of eachother. If they are looking to you for direction/reward then they'll be less likely to care about eachother.

This isn't sounding like full on bitch fighting to me but it most certainly could escalate into that if not carefully managed.

 

[mylaLylasMom]

Thank you so much for the advice, i will try that for sure. I really appreciate it. That was my point as well... they very rarely have a fight. and are so tight and obsessed with each other most of the time. I do feed them seperatly and 2 weeks ago started crating them while we sit and eat supper. This morning I actually put one of them in a closed off room and fed her and fed the other in another room so they couldnt even hear each other eating. it worked well, Thanks so much again !!!!

 

[brodieboxer]

Good advice above. I would feed them in their crates and let them outside separately. Female fights are not good, that's for sure. I'm a teacher, and girl fights among humans are worse than boy fights, too - !

 

[boxermom5]

My 2 would go at it on occasion, though there was always a subtle cue it was coming, so I was able to step in and separate them before it got ugly...generally a minute change in posturing or the way they would look at each other - and usually food, or the mere smell of an incompletely cleaned up food spill on the floor, or one of the rubber bones was the trigger, so toys were always supervised and they ate at opposite ends of the room with me in the middle to be sure it stayed that way (the older of the 2 always got her bowl first since she was in the family first and seemingling more the alpha, and this seemed to help with any issues). They otherwise were the best of buddies 99.9% of the time (for the 8 years they spent together - Tess was 4 1/2 when Tenaia came into the family).

Spend some time really observing their behavior. I am sure if you watch them closely, you will see the subtle change in their body language just before a sniping starts a fight. Once you get to know exactly what that looks like for your two girls, you should be able to step in before it gets to the snipe that starts the fight.