Aggressive Dog-Why?

[TheTwoRoos]

I have dogs. A mix who is about 10 or 11 years old, a Pit bull who is about 5 something, two small dogs one being a Rat Terrier who is about 6,6 1/2,a Lhasa Apso who is somewhere around the same age as the rat Terrier, then and Final, a German Shepard who is only in her 2's,she is my dog, the one in question.

She is not human aggressive, and to be honest has never been so much dog aggressive but that all changed about a month ago.
She attacked our dog the Lhasa Apso,and from what we saw no apparent reason, once she got pulled off, the warden (The Pit Bull),came and attacked Gunner (It honestly was not too much of a surprise, his name fits what he does best).The Pit bull has to show the Lhasa apso up about every oh blue moon, anytime the Lhasa gets too outta hand, but the German shepherd, she has never done that, she was what really surprised us The most. I have literally searched around and only found a few things. She could hurting, could have been jealous at the time due to her not being the first one abled to greet my mother and sister (The dogs enjoy them because they readily ever see them),then 3 she could have "Magically" got triggered (that makes no sense to me, someone with Knowledge explain that?),then 4 ,Hierarchy, which I think is why she is doing this aggressive behavior.

That is only 1 of the 3 fights she has gotten into.

The second one isn't really a fight but could have been. This was an Encounter with the Terrier. He was doing his thing the warden our Pit, playing, and I don't know if our The German Shepered (she is girl BTW, and her name is Sugar),if she thought a fight was beginning or what, but she had the edacity to attack the Terrier!Which all she had time for was to snap and leap at him, before any real damage was done the warden jumped d\on her stopping everything. Yet NOBODY has any idea what is getting into her, someone have any clue, anyone else's dogs all of a sudden just begun attacking dogs.

The third fight. Can't blame her, or anyone of the 3 large dogs for taking immediate action and nearly killing the neighbors dog who, well invaded our property. The warden actually knew this dog (she is a Female Pit).My guess is 2 females who are pretty "catty". We do know females and female shave absolutely no problem with fighting another female as with us humans, males generally wouldn't fight a female.

Anyways,from what I see this was a complete territorial moment. This dog and her "Partner" have actually attacked my German shepered before, but then my Shepered was much younger, and less stronger, and more gutless. Well, today she proved herself a changed women. My 10 year old male dog,and my pit, and sugar very aggressively attacked her, of course now the dog came down I'm almost positive to try and punk Sugar out as they usually did, but this time, that back fired, extremely horribly. They would have killed her if we were not present. Sugar the German shepherd drug her by her back, ripped and bit at her private places, ripped her entire butt/back all to crap,noticed her biting her legs, aggressively just attacking her, while the 10 year old took bites,extremly harassed her, and the Pit Bull, our warden was indeed In for the kill, which it is pretty unusual for males to fight female.at this point the female Pit was in complete shock after realizing her partner was not gonna assist her and the numbers were against her. In shock I tried grabbing stick to break (wasted 40 seconds),my grandma was yelling ,and it was all just very bad, at this point my foot came in handy and I kicked sugar, which would only make her lift her head up and hover ,which I wasn't reaching my hand into the action and I generally stood a good 4 feet out of the fight, and on occasion I tried grabbing my dog, but I seriously wasn't gonna get bit. The poor Female Pit was throwing her head everyway snapping trying to ward the 3 dogs off, but my dogs were relentless. But eventually my grandma got ahold of the pit our warden, and surprisingly he actually got off the dog, Sugar on second thought was over with it, she was seeking revenge, but I was able to gain control over her.The Female pit trotted home with a very distraught body. My dog looked and felt like she just ate a bloody deer, while as Taz our Warden had some blood on him and actually had a bite wound quite close to his heart,and the 10 year old one didn't have too much (he wasn't too involved.)Honestly, this is revenge. I completely understand this fight, but seeing my dogs "inner Wolf" was actually Terrifying......

Have actually noticed my Dog is getting Revenge on any dog who ever showed such bad negativity towards her, those 3 dogs....

So if anyone has any ideas on why my dogs becoming such a Savage, please let me know so we can resolve the problem.

 

[dainerra]

at 2 years old, she is becoming an adult. That will change a lot of her outlook. It sounds like she had a couple bad experiences with other dogs as a puppy as well. That tends to foster an insecure "I'll get them before they get me" attitude. She has learned that she canm't count on the humans in her pack to keep her safe and most fend for herself. It sets a bad precedent and creates an insecure reactive dog. If you go to a trainer who is experienced with fearful reactive dogs, you can likely get a handle on this.

The "pack attack" is a very normal dog behavior. If your female GSD had been the one down, it's quite likely that your dogs would have joined in the attack on HER.

Terriers are a difficult read. Many times, humans miss the small dog language that actually triggers the fight. Instead, they blame the dog that makes the first physical move because they simply don't see the actual instigator flipping the proverbial bird at the other dog. And, believe me, terriers are a master at this. Their entire body language screams "come at me bro!" but humans tend to not see it even though it is commonly the thing they actually like most about terriers - that fiesty attitude.

First thing you need to do, if you actually want to tget this under control is to put the Warden in his place. Don't let him correct the other dogs - it's not his place and actually sets a bad cycle for the other dogs. You aren't in charge, the dogs are and they are the ones making all of the decisions. Many people start this bad habit when they bring a new puppy home and assume that the older dog will teach him how to behave. From now one, dogs aren't the ones who correct other dogs. No more doggy stink eye. No more muscling or bullying from anyone.

 

[dainerra]

I breed and train GSDs. but aggression especially is not something you can pinpoint the cause online. You need to have an experienced trainer come in and observe the dogs in your home. In the meantime, I would rotate what dogs are loose together and not let any of them outside unsupervised.

 

[TheTwoRoos]

We don't.

I cannot believe Sugar would think I wouldn't protect her? The fights she has gotten into when she younger, were just the littler dogs roughing her up, and occasionally got sick of her roughness and would actually snap her or something. The fight with the pit I couldn't help. She jumped the fence and went to their property and I was not able to get to her.

 

[I Love Layers]

I can't say much because we will only ever have 1 dog at a time, until the dog is at its last few years will be get a new one for it to 'train' in, which I know some people look down upon but LGDs seem to do a good job at it since they know that nothing can hurt their family or animals. And I only have experience with our LGD for our dog..

But all I have to say is don't try to split up a dog fight please don't! A Para at our school tried to and she was in the hospital for a week, had horrible gashes everywhere and almost had to get a leg amputated.
Definitely put yourself in charge so that if that happens you can stop it without getting in the middle..

 

[TheTwoRoos]

The only problem with that is they would have killed the poor dog...

 

[I Love Layers]

The only problem with that is they would have killed the poor dog...

That's why I said you need to be in charge.

 

[dainerra]

We don't.

I cannot believe Sugar would think I wouldn't protect her? The fights she has gotten into when she younger, were just the littler dogs roughing her up, and occasionally got sick of her roughness and would actually snap her or something. The fight with the pit I couldn't help. She jumped the fence and went to their property and I was not able to get to her.

but that is enough to shake a dog's confidence. she had to fend for herself. As an owner, it's up to us to teach puppies proper manners and that includes stopping their playful behavior beofre the older dogs get annoyed with them. Dogs don't look at unrelated puppies as their responsiblity in most cases. Instead, they try to ignore them until they get so annoyed that they snap and go overboard in the correction. And puppies don't learn this way so a few minutes later they go back to be annoying. So every time the other dogs corrected her or the little dogs played rough with her, she was learning that humans didn't care if she was intimidated or picked on.

Little dogs roughing her up you have to look at this way - a 30 year old midget beating up a toddler. Not a playful disagreement among equals.

My stud dog is still terrified of yorkies from a 5 minute encounter with an adult male when he was only 4 months old.

 

[pennyJo1960]

@TheTwoRoos Please listen to the advice given.. the breeds you have chosen will result
in one or more dead if you do not not separate them and keep them apart even rehoming the
GSD