They have said they have seen dogs fighting, not the same thing as ripping an old dogs throat out. When i showed & my dogs were entire i had two males who fought. They would put each other "down" on their backs but thats as far as it went. It was always the same one that started it.

Well done rune for starting this thread.

I think, on the other thread, people were being too anthopomorphically emotional. I appreciate that the subject is hugely emotive & all of us may feel differently about it. But at least on this thread we can try to be more objective & perhaps debate things more sensibly.

I don't, for one minute, think that dogs, cats or other predators, have a concept that we humans call "murder". Killing of other animals, be they of the same species or a different species, is usually either a predatory behaviour, in which case we can hardly expect these normal, hard-wired instinctive behaviours to be completely masked by domestication, training & a full tummy. It's up to us to manage these situations. Or based on fear, possibly fear of the unknown, fear of very strange behaviour in another same-species animal, fear of being attacked by a fitting animal, fear of the noises made by an animal in pain etc etc.

Very rarely in domestic dogs, fights to the death, or at least inflicting severe injury, are caused by competition over resources, e.g. the right to mate, the protection of young, protection of territory. Dogs are social creatures & have developed communication systems to give warning signs to prevent such conflicts. Even a couple of dogs scrapping over a bone are unlikely to fight to the death & any severe injuries would possibly be caused by an unlucky bite to the jugular or something, rather than a pre-meditated & deliberate act to kill.

Dogs are biologically pre-disposed to be social creatures & to communicate with each other via body language, vocalisation, sight & scent. Their communication systems are relatively sophisticated compared to lots of other more solitary species ~ so maybe, when for reasons unknown to us, & completely out of context & perhaps frighteningly for the dogs, these communication systems go wrong, just maybe, it is a HUGE thing for some dogs. It could be so scary that they feel the need to attack & maybe this is heightened even more by the fact that this behaviour is coming from a dog that they thought they knew very well, & found very predictable. I don't always like human analogies because of the risk of anthropomorphism, but imagine how you'd feel if your mother/father/son/best friend etc suddenly turned on you waving a gun/axe (substitute mouthful of sharp teeth for a dog). This would almost be worse that getting attacked by a psychopathic stranger or a drugged up junkie, or surprising a burglar!

And then if you consider some other species in the feline world, infanticide is rife. Male lions & male cats will kill young offspring that they haven't sired, solely to bring the female into oestrus so they can mate & pass on their own genes. This would be absolutely abhorrent in the human world, but is an evolutionary successful & completely normal behaviour in the feline world.

IMO if we allow our pets to be together unsupervised, then we take those risks ~ but personally I'd rather allow my dogs the comfort of company of their own species, than separate them when I'm not around. And my cats also mix freely with the dogs when I'm not around. It's a risk I'm prepared to take for their well-being & happiness.

No, the difference is that VelvetBoxers dogs had no intention of killing eachother.


And you know that how?


When a dog does what she explains thats "normal" dog behaviour. The Collie was a female, killed by a male, unusual anyway, but she didnt have a puncture wound with a wrongly placed tooth mark, she was ripped to bits!

I have never said it couldnt happen, what I have said is I wouldnt tolerate a dog that did it. We must as owners, act responsibly and manage our dogs in a way which limits the chance of such occurrances.

You of all people should know that lurchers shake and go on shaking when they are allowed to hunt.

rune

thats not really a fight imo.

I never blamed the Dog Jackbox, like you I have no "blame" to attach to him. My point was before I was even crueler than before was I personally would never leave a frail, elderly dog in the presence of young ones alone when Im out.

'Tolerate'---what a wierd word to use about a dog you love.

rune

Teagan attacked Kingsley, and would have killed him if I wasn't there to intervene (this is years ago now).
I hated her for a while, but there was no way I was getting rid of her!
I forgave her, because afterall, she's a dog and obviously did it for a reason (even if the reason is unbeknown to me).

So you admit that it is something that could happen between dogs - especially in this situation?

But you avoid the possibility of it happening by separating, I get that you are blaming the owners, I would expect nothing less from you.

However - you are happy to feel that because (IYO) the owners failed, the dog should pay the price.