Neutering fighting dogs

Hi everyone

Got a bit of a problem with my dogs...

for those that don't know me, I have 2 male dogs, a 2 year old fox terrier and a 1.5 year old jack russell.

They have always been fine but recently have started fighting, with the fights escalating in the past couple of weeks.

Now my poor Archie (fox terrier) has a face full of wounds and I don't know what to do!

It's hard to tell who is the most dominant dog, so hard to tell which should be castrated.

What's wrong with castrating both of them? Any ideas?

Thanks

The problem with doing both is they will still be equal and whatever issues they have will probably remain. It's not like you can try it and see is it you can't put the bits back once they have gone. You could talk to the vet about chemical castration on the one you think is less dominant and see what happens.

Does one dog usually instigate the fights?

Neutering dogs that fight does not work, my Aunt had two boys a Whippet and a Yorkshire Terrier they were both neutered but continued to fight. She ended up having to re-home her Yorkshire Terrier to her Mother-In-Law for the safety of both dogs.

They probably carried on fighting because they were both neutered. The idea is to castrate the least dominant of the two and increase the difference in testosterone levels between the two. My neutering both the testosterone level has stayed equal, just as if they had not been neutered at all.

Hello, and really lovely to see your on the forum again x

I too have two entire boys (cavaliers) who generally are fine. Sometimes there is a problem, one is very food dominent, and very possessive with toys. I have to also consider castration due to an undesended testicle, but that's going off topic.

They do have a scrap at times, not nasty but just sparring and I intervene and they stop, but of course I am not always about to "take control".

I am not experienced enough to suggest anything, but I hope you get this resolved as it must be upsetting for you x

She originally only had the Whippet done, as he was the one that was the least dominant and never ever fought back which resulted in some terrible injuries over the time.

She eventually agreed to get her Yorkie done to see if this would help with his agressiveness, it didn't, his will to fight just got worse and escalated up to the point where she could no longer cope with him or the fights.

Hi Tuti how lovely to see you
I am so sorry to hear the boys are fighting can you give any more details about the circumstances,when they started/when they fight.

As the others say I am not sure if neutering will help but if you do decide to go ahead it should be the least dominant.
Here are some useful links, Shadowboxers article and previous posts...
http://www.dogsey.com/dog-articles.php?t=12202
http://www.dogsey.com/showpost.php?p...1&postcount=18


Tuti there is a good link in this last postfrom Shadowboxer still lending a guiding hand.....

http://www.dogsey.com/showpost.php?p=18299&postcount=8

''If severe fighting is present both dogs can be neutered. It is important not to castrate the dominant dog, since that could lower the hierarchical distance between both animals''

Beat me to it, thats exactly what I would advise too :smt001

Hello!!!

When we had our son the Biffters and Mo started to fight. they were both entire. Our vet said to neuter both, we disagreed. We spent about 3 to 4 months watching them VERY carefully (in that time we never left them unsupervised together even for a moment) and we decided, within 1 to 2 months which dog we thought was the more dominant. Surprisingly it was our meek and mild BC. We then reinforced his status, by stroking him first, feeding him first, making a lot of fuss of him but not the Biffters and we started to see a slight improvement. We then spoke to the vet again about our observations, what we'd done etc and we agreed to have the Biffters neutered. It worked. BUT
we still have to reinforce Mo's position on occassion. If we give the Biffters a lot of attention he gets grumbly and starts to elevate himself so we have to be careful about how much attention we give each of them. We still never ever leave them on their oen unsupervised if we are not actually in. they sleep together at night (not close, but in the hall) but if we leave the house and they are in the same room they fight. if we leave them in the car...they fight. We think that is a learnt behaviour though as the problem with the fighting went on for about 9 months all in.
I hope this helps. you really need to observe your dogs VERY carefully and look at how you are with them, you could be inadvertently elevating the position of the lower ranking dog? Perhaps the one that has the wounds is the lower ranking ne and by giving him lots of sympathy and cuddles you are elevating him when he shouldn't be???? Just an idea. Good luck, it's a horrible position to be in.
Axxxxx