Dogs not getting along...

Hullo again. Sorry for posting another question so soon - I'll start contributing more to the site when my newest dog has settled in

Quick recap; already have 6 yr. rescue bitch who's been with us 4 yrs (Poppy). Adopted second rescue lady (Rosie) on 5th September. New dog initially had overattachment issues that are beginning to wane. She has also been treated for an abcess caused by a tick bite (very messy business ). Happily she is much better in herself and coming into her own.

Newest problem is this; aggression between the two dogs.

Poppy is obviously trying to establish her dominance, and now Rosie's gained enough confidence to test the boundaries. Unforunately this has resulted in nasty spats. When they aren't fighting, they are eyeing each other and growling near constantly. They sleep in the utility room together at night and sit confortably with one another in the garden. The contentious moments seem to arise over toys (now discreetly hidden) and (dog) beds.

The fights really are nasty and I'm concerned as the two are from puppy farms and utterly accustomed to being housed with other bitches.

Is this normal? I expected some conflict but not fur-flying fights.

Advice would be heartily appreciated, and apologies again for calling on more help so soon.

Thanks.

Glad you figured out some of it was to do with toys

I guess I had a baptism of fire putting 2 dogs together so now my advice to anyone is to keep them apart LOTS, when you cant keep and eye on them keep them appart then slowly build up the time they are together as they build up the trust

I found it helped to do some training with both of them there too, making them both wait and treating one at a time - so they learn good things happen when the other one is there

Take your time
Hopefully they will learn to trust each other - the more they are alowed to fight the more of a habit it will be

Try and step in before fights happen - watch the body laungage for hard stairing and stiff postures and straight away get them seperated

and to end on a positive
Ok mine arnt 2 bitches but when I introduced Mia into the house we had lots of fight, I was totaly stressed out and thinking I couldnt keep her, but taking things slow so far this year we have only had 1 fight (touch wood) and that was just playing going wrong when Mia got trapped between cusions and freaked out

Had a similar problem when we visited my friend who has a westie bitch. She got on well with my dog but got really possessive if he had a toy/food/etc even though she had the same, kept stealing his bone, growling etc. He didn't fight back, kind of left her to it luckily. So we separated them during meal times, left no toys around when both of them were together and that was fine. So separating them and spending equal training/play time with them seems to be the key. When they are together playing observe.

I'm going through something similar with mine...they had had initial spats to start with but settled down reasonably well until I introduced a third dog.

During the settling in period I found it helped to establish specific rules so that they had to do what I wanted rather than what they wanted. I've reinstigated this and it seems to be working again, though its too early to say for sure (and I don't want to jinx it).

I've also decided to get a qualified behaviourist in to help make sure that I am reading the situation right as I think its possible that as I may be part of the problem, I may well be missing things.

I'm not sure which rescue your girls came from, but do they have a behaviourist that you can talk to (mine didn't, but I know some do).

Good luck in getting it sorted, it really can be quite stressful and then of course your own stress does nothing to calm the situation. But if you can get through this, it will be so worth it.