Dog fights

Recently I was confronted with dog fights again in a very bad way, after introducing Arf into the existing pack at The Malasag House.

And I had dog fights before of course with two male Rottweilers in the pack, as I don't believe you can really have dogs together without dog fights. This very bad dog fight affected me a lot though, as one of my dogs, kind of my favorite dog, YokYok, was hurt in a way that hurt me a lot, even though in the end it is not that bad and he doesn't really suffer or something now. Actually he is pretty okay.

And that is the main thing I noticed related to dog fights: they look pretty bad, like it can even look the dogs are going to kill each other, but I never really heard dog killing each other in dog fights, although of course they could and they might.

Mostly, or even always, what I see after a dog fight, is that the two dogs just go their own way as if nothing happened. Really, as if nothing happened. It is me, it are humans, who make a big fuzz about it, not the dogs. They just fight, make some kind of decision who is the strongest or something, and just go their own way, just go on to the next thing in their day.

What I also noticed is that if dogs fight, THEY BOTH KEEP IT GOING. Normally it is not one dog attacking another dog. That is how it may start, but if dogs are fighting, in my experience the fight only continues if both dogs decide there is a fight. If one dog decides there is no fight, like giving up, giving in, the fight stops. If the fight continues, believe me, both dogs keep it going, not just one.

Stopping dog fights

In my experience the most effective way to stop a dog fight is throwing water over the dogs fighting. This will mostly stop them from fighting, but not always. I did not have success with the method of Cesar Millan, touching the dog or dogs at the back side. The only that worked for me until now was throwing water or sometimes I was able to put myself kind of in between during a pause in the fight.

The only thing NOT to do is to really intervene in the fight, like trying to pull the dogs away from each other by grabbing them with your hands. You will very likely be hurt and you probably won't stop the fight anyhow by intervening that way. I once ended up in the hospital after I tried to intervene in a dog fight between my own (male) Rottweilers as I thought YokYok was about to kill Adam. How wrong was I, as I ended up in hospital with stiches and a hospital bill and, as indicated above, the dogs just stopped fighting and walked away after as if nothing had happened.

So if throwing water does not help and you are not able to put yourself with your body in between to separate them, JUST LET THEM FIGHT. They will normally just survive, and yes, they may be hurt a little, but in my experience, being hurt myself doesn't add anything of value and basically there is nothing you can do to stop dogs fighting.

Ah, and last but not least: keep calm. And that is not easy, as I often find myself shouting at the dogs when they are fighting, but the calmer I am, like just calling them, the more likely it is they will stop fighting.

No photo

(Un)fortunately I have no photo of (my) dogs fighting, as normally I indeed try stopping them and have no time to take pictures. So no photo here.