Hello everyone,

[sharronhurlbut]

A lot of water tossed on the dogs sometimes help.
A friend swears by tossing a blanket over the 2 dogs, so they are covered…
I think we all just want it to stop, and of course, we use our hands...
Sigh. It can sure hurt!!

[Terry]

Water has never really worked for us - when they are focused on the fight, they somehow manage to forget how much they hate water. We usually wind up with wet, angry, bleeding (and still fighting!) Basenjis if they really are into it. The best way we've found is to have a really tall person carefully grab the less aggressive dog and hold him/her up out of reach of the other dog. Of course, this still risks being bitten, either by the dog being held up or by the one trying to reach the one being held. If they have collars on, it can sometimes work for one person to grab each dog's collar and pull them apart. We had a dog sitter once actually grab each dog's tail and pull them in opposite directions! We were amazed that she didn't get badly bitten by one or both!

Terry

[wizard]

OMG that sounds horrible … but that being said you obviously seem to have the situation in control now.
Welcome to our pack BTW.

[Patty]

Agree with you both - as you say its very hard to watch two dogs who you love dearly and not intervene.
Thankfully you have had such good advice from your behaviourist and followed it. I have a basenji here now that came back to me because of problems with a new baby (unplanned). His owner paid ?1000 to a behaviourist and then failed to follow his advice!! So the problems were not resolved.
The poor boy didn't understand why he was brought back and was so upset for a long time but thankfully has now settled well with his older brother and his sister.

[renaultf1]

@Terry:

We had a dog sitter once actually grab each dog's tail and pull them in opposite directions! We were amazed that she didn't get badly bitten by one or both!

Terry

Interesting. In one of Patricia McConnell's books, I believe she recommends grabbing dogs by their hind legs to pull them apart…providing dumping water (or spraying a hose, if outside) or making a loud noise doesn't stop the fight. Now I would think that one would whip around and bite the person pulling at it, but it must work because they are focused forward toward each other.

To me, there is nothing worse than seeing dogs you love fight...and then try to break it up and get bit. The one time I've been bitten is by the one coming back at the one being held...when the fight happened I was pretty much 100% sure that I was going to get bit a couple of bites - sure enough, I got one bite that broke the skin and 2 that just bruised. At the time, I wasn't at all concerned about myself...I was concerned about what injuries there might be to the dogs.

I do wonder if using a squirt bottle right in their faces (say toward their nose/mouth) if that might work because of the element of surprise.

[DLafornia]

well, if you have the time to be so accurate to spray right in their face and nose… have at it...lol I will take my chance and get bit, my hands and legs work pretty quickly to block a shot to the other dog. The water thing didn't work for me, and as I said, 5 gallons got dumped on both of them, in my case I had a tile floor, and it just made it harder to get a grip now with out slipping on all that water... that was really dumb on my part...lol

[tanza]

If it is that serious of a fight… they are in a different zone, period... typically their eyes are glazed over and they intend to kill.... not just hurt the other one.

[DLafornia]

yep last time it looked like that…. Ziggee was angry... beyond words to describe, but after a minute, he focused again on me, and came back to his loving self, thank god.