Expert: Lee Charles Kelley - 10/23/2008

Question
Hi.  I have two Pembroke Welsh Corgis, a male and a female, 6 year old littermates. They were spayed/neuterd at 5 months of age.  As they have aged their aggression displayed towards one another has intensified.  I have received conflicting information from behaviorists and am quite confused as to what is causing this.  I've been told the female, also the runt in the litter, is the Alpha female and the male needs to acquiesce to her. He seems to have difficulty understanding that.  I've also been told there is ranking, but since they're male and female, I have read articles which contradict that. Am I the Alpha female?  These two have a true love-hate relationship.  They are reluctant to go outdoors without the other yet when they are in the house or in the same room, watch out!  Various stimuli seem to encourage an attack, a vacuum cleaner, the doorbell, a lawnmower, just about any commotion in a house.  I'd thought the male was the aggressor, but I've since changed my opinion.  He growls, but she attacks most often with little to no warning.  Since she is smaller than he is, she invariably ends up with the injuries. We used to go months without a fight, then weeks, now it's days.  This is not play fighting, this is fighting with the intent to cause harm, and each time I need to step in I risk injury. I am working with a behaviorist whose first recommendation was immediate separation, basket muzzles for both, Pheromone diffusers and collars and not showing the male attention while in the presence of the female and making him subserviant to her.  Am I on the right track?

Answer
Hi, Linda,

Thanks for the question. It's a doozy.

What you're witnessing is the perfect example of why the old ideas about dominance and submission, who's alpha and who's not, are nonsensical and completely false. How in the world could a runt of the litter become the alpha dog? Simple: there's no such thing as an alpha dog. Being "alpha" is really a symptom of too much nervous tension or anxiety.

http://www.leecharleskelley.com/thetop10myths/mythofthepackleader.html

http://www.leecharleskelley.com/thetop10myths/dominancesubmission.html

What you're actually seeing is how shifts in energy affect a dog's behavior (all behavior is an expression of some kind of energy). From my perspective what happens when these dogs hear the vacuum cleaner or the doorbell or the lawnmower, etc., is that it creates a surge of energy in either one of the dogs (or both of them), which then causes one or both to look for a way to "ground" that energy. Instead of grabbing a chew toy or a bone, they're grounding their energy by attacking one another.

Make sense?

So how do you fix it?

The most important thing to understand is that all dogs offload nervous tension (excess energy) primarily through their teeth. That's the default setting for this. And remember, corgis are actually bred to bite the "heels" of cattle, so their urge to bite is more easily stimulated than in many other breeds. There are other behaviors that allow a dog to offload excess energy, such as running, playing games of chase, barking, digging, etc. But even THESE behaviors are ways of sublimating the urge to bite.

Now that you know this, it make sense that a dog who's allowed, and even encouraged to bite in play, will have less excess tension to use for aggressive purposes than a dog who doesn't. So the second thing to understand is that you need to play fetch and tug-of-war with both dogs. But you have to play these games outdoors, and with only one dog at a time. This is especially true of tug, though eventually you can play fetch with both dogs at once.

http://www.leecharleskelley.com/thetop10myths/dontplaytugofwar.html

Another thing that will help enormously is to take the dogs on long walks together in as natural a setting as possible. Walking side by side on a "hunting expedition" creates feelings of solidarity and camaraderie in dogs. Plus a long walk will use up some of that aggressive energy that is now being downloaded into these "kill your sibling" fights.

http://www.tiny.cc/walking2dogs

The next thing you need to do is stop all forms of punishment, scolding, and enforcing who's supposed to be dominant, etc. These things only increase nervous tension. Any time you see one or both dogs start to exhibit signs of tension, PRAISE THEM! That will, in all likelihood, stop them from acting on that tension because it will REDUCE the level of tension they're feeling. Why? Because all behavior comes from emotion. Praise only works as a reward because it changes a dog's emotional state; it makes a dog feel happy and emotionally connected to its owner. And it's hard to feel happy, social feelings and aggressive at the same time.

WHEN YOU CHANGE A DOG'S EMOTIONAL STATE YOU AUTOMATICALLY CHANGE HIS BEHAVIOR!

Another link: http://www.tiny.cc/praisetocorrect

Another helpful tip: dogs are bred to perform tasks for their owners. Corgis were bred to herd cattle. How many cows have your dogs herded lately? My guess would be none. So they need to be given "jobs" that stimulate and use the instincts that they were born with; they need to be given jobs. This doesn't mean you have to re-home them to a farm somewhere. Just teaching them to obey certain simple commands will do the trick. The best jobs/commands for this are simple ones like the "down," the "heel," the recall, and the "stay." These commands actually stimulate and satisfy a dog's hunting instincts because they were originally designed to mimic certain fixed-action patterns found in a wolf's hunting repertoire. If your dogs already "know" these commands, they need to be re-taught as part of a game of fetch or tug. The tennis ball or the tug rag should be both inducement and reward for obedience.

Finally, both dogs should be hand fed outdoors (separately) using what's called a pushing exercise until they're more balanced emotionally. This exercise will enable them to be more stable when sudden surges of energy (like from the vacuum cleaner, the lawnmower, etc.) take place. They won't be thrown off balance by such stimuli.

Final link: http://www.tiny.cc/SwimUpstream (the pushing exercise)

I'm not saying this will be easy. You have your work cut out for you. But the great thing about ALL these training tips of mine is that once you start interacting more playfully with your dogs, and put them back in touch with their social heritage (which is based on the need to hunt as a cohesive group), you'll start to feel happier and more in touch with your OWN connection to nature.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.
LCK
http://www.LeeCharlesKelley.com
“Changing the World, One Dog at a Time”