Quote:
Originally Posted by Ross
I watched a programme about a dog trainer and she was training two labradors. Two males at that and they kept trying to mount each other in a dominate way to try to establish themselves as the leader. She said thats what dogs will do, and won't stop intil one of them becomes the submissive. It was quite interesting.
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Yes, most dogs can sort out who is dominate with playful interaction. Other signs include one dog trying to put it's head over the other dogs shoulders or back, one dog standing on top of another while it's laying or sitting down and one dog chasing another. As an interesting side note, it's actually the dominate dog that gets chased around by other dogs.
Sometimes, dogs can't or are unwilling to sort out a pecking order by play. This will usually lead to mild fighting. It's the kind of fighting where there is a lot of snapping jaws, growling or even barking, but not much damage is done. Most often this will sort the situation with one dog backing off or getting rolled by the other dog.
Rarely, you will get to a stage where dogs simply can not sort it out through play or fighting. This is when they'll start trying to kill each other. I have two female Rottweilers that just can't work it out. One is older but kind of a weak and sickly dog, and when the younger one got to be about two years old, they started fighting for dominance. It progressed from snapping fights infrequently to eventual constant deadly fights. Now if they get the chance they'll just lunge for each other, grab ahold of what they can and not let go. It's almost impossible to break their jaws apart, they're simply too strong. It's danger to seperate and it's behavior that can't be trained out. Those two dogs have to be sperated all the time now.