Oh that's terrible, is he alone There has to be a reason and it saddens me that the owner can't see it.

Regarding last night, and my use of the term 'human intervention' when a dog attacks there are two targets, humans or other dogs. (We'll ignore looking for food which of course is a third)

If it's a human there are in my view two reasons:-
a) Has been trained to do so i.e. by Police, Army, or whatever
b) Has been beaten to hell and back, abused, and effectively tortured.

I'm never quite sure what happens to service dogs when they retire, where ever they go there must always be a chance that a lifetimes trainning kicks in when it shouldn't. Likewise those poor dogs who have been mis treated can suddenly remember their past life and retaliate.

When it comes to a dog attacking another dog we have to be very careful not to attribute 'human' characteristics to the dog. My feeling is that dogs have a deep down desire to 'form a pack' and some people may ask 'why' the answer is in self preservation, a big pack is better than a small one which is better than no pack at all.

But, and this is the important bit, there has to be a leader and that leader has to have control over all the pack. If he or she meets another dog it will want it to join the pack, but the other dog may be a leader too, and that's when real fighting can start.

Note that there can be what (to us humans) is fighting when the leader is just disciplining a junior dog, but it's different form of fight, usually despite much growling, snapping, and chasing there is little or no blood. The leader stays as leader and the junior gets chastised and learns to not do it again.

Finally there is of course the 'human intervention' when dogs are abused and encouraged to fight each other for the humans enjoyment, dog fight organising scum who I pray every night will die in some horrible way (The humans that is not the dogs) and that is all I can bear to write about that aspect of cannine life.

So June and Gordon as they say 'comments please'

Jeff (next door) will either be on lates or on nights, I am guessing nights as the barking started about the time he leaves the house for work when on nights.
All is quiet now, maybe worn himself out and gone to sleep.
Lots of people confuse the discplining of a puppy with a fight or trying to harm or injure a puppy, because the puppy is screaming blue murder, to try and persuade the adult that it is scared, or me possibly to come and intervene. I rarely if ever intervene, I'll say thats enough now, and straight away it stops, puppy usually gets straight up and carries on being naughty in recent cases, so I tend to leave it and let them get on with it.
They do it between themselves as well as there is a pecking order that I do not interfere with, if I think things are going too far then I will tell whoever it is thats dishing it out, to stop it, but it all depends why it started in the first place. They have their own order of feeding, and I adhere to that, many people think you feed your leader first, but in actual fact the leader waits till last and it is your beta enforcer who is fed first, then it goes down the line

Evening Harvey - Yes I can take on board a lot of what you have written and agrre with a goodly part of it. My lot will "fight" amongst themselves, but it is a snarling contest with lots of jaw snapping etc, quickly resolved and no blood letting at all. The same I have seen on many occasions with my other dogs over the years, as I have never had less than three dogs. Also this sort of sparring can often be seen in packs of foxhounds or beagles that are kennelled together, once again there is seldom damage done to the various participants.
The pack theory is strengthened by the fact that as stated last night my big 'un has good recall and will not go toward another dog or bitch. He is quite happy to walk unleashed with me and the three bitches and only gives dogs passing at a distance a cursory glance. The trouble comes when another canine of either gender comes up to him or one of the others, he is put on the lead immediately as he will attack it with no show of stiff legged circling or even any noise. This attack is quite different from the family squabbles mentioned previously. His intention is quite clearly to try and kill the interloper and being a very large powerful fit working dog he would achieve his aim very quickly if he was allowed to continue. Of course, he is prevented from doing this. When he is not on our own land he is muzzled as a simple precaution, to avoid any nasty accidents.
You mention the second target as being humans and give the two reasons why a dog would attack one. Basically either trained to do so or as a result of abuse. As I said last night he has never been either abused (we brought him home straight off his mother at 8 weeks) or trained to attack humans. From 14 months old he has shown aggression towards both dogs (in the manner stated) and also humans. He will not let anyone with whom he is not extremely familiar get within 6 feet of me without going for them. Not a bit of barking or snarling either but a very full blooded attack that really takes some restraining. As said previously there is no-one who will deliver to our house because of him. Even muzzled there is no one in the village who will walk down the same side of the street as him, on the rare occasions that I end up down there with the dogs.
On the plus side, he is 100% safe with stock and even cats, never tries to attack children or for that matter puppies.
As stated previously there is no guarding breed in his make-up although it is said of Deerhounds that they are very slow to anger but once acheived it is like rousing the devil.
I have tended his wounds and stapled up cuts etc on him without even a grumble, the degree of loyalty that he displays towards me is quite humbling, makes one feel quite undeserving of such adoration.
Once again, repeating what I said last night, I put his actions down to the fact that there must be some significant flaw in his mental make-up.
He is about as fine an example (physiologically) as any large lurcher I have ever seen, but I will not allow him to be used as a stud dog (despite offers of large amounts of money) as I fear his pups would be take after him and this could end up in all sorts of miserable conclusions, mostly for the pups. He was unbeaten in the showring in the early part of his life until he became too belligerent to even consider a showring.
There you are Harvey - your turn for comments - sorry it took so long to reply but I am very slow at the old keyboard skills.

Just read your last post June - your feeding order is exactly the same as mine and Fagin is fed last - it is the old girl Gypsy who is fed first. Oddly even when I have made a point (out of curiosity - and in an attempt to better understand my dogs) of feeding them all at exactly the same time. Fagin will stand by his and wait for all the others to get on with their food before he even sniffs at his.

Like you say LG, living as a family they will go through rough play and minor squabbles, just like a large family of children, I've never once had it get out of hand, if I feel it is getting heated I'll stop them, and all credit to them, they do.
Cariad is wonderful with people, in fact she can be very good with other dogs, just depends on what is going on around her really, if she thinks there is any chance of her authority being undermined they are floored and held firmly until any sign of rebellion ceases and then they are allowed up and given a good glaring at. Never once has she drawn blood, just goes to show the power of those jaws and her ability to judge the amount of pressure needed. I really don't think this is a trait that can be inherited, LG, they are either that way inclined or they aren't, look at Keshi, daft as a brush and thinks all dogs are potential playmates, they could well be killed due to her somewhat over enthusiastic interpretation of play, but never through bad temper or aggression

He sounds much like our Baruska was. You say he wants to try and kill the interloper but I do wonder if he has just 'sensed' that this interloper could be a contender for taking over 'his' pack. I don't suggest you ever try it but in the wild thousands of years ago he might have just given the other dog a good hiding and made him go away licking his wounds. Unfortunately we can not test my theory but I do wonder if he would really kill the other dog, I don't think he would, not unless the other dog was determined to 'take over' his pack and kill Fagin to do so. That would be unusual since most creatures (Including humans) generally know when things are not going their way and get the hell out before it's too late.

I suppose there has to be some dogs with mental processes which are not the norm, 100% agree with you that he should never be bred from. I often said that Baruskas breeder was irresponsible because she had this 'attack' mode and so far as I could see there was never any give away sign from the other dog. But there had to be something.

After she died I suddently realised that she never actually wanted anything from us, yes she would eat the food we gave her, be fool not to, but in her cannine way she tried to provide food for us and would definately 'have a go' at anything she perceived to be a danger to us. That could be anything from another large dog to a massive great John Deere tractor But unlike your Fagin she never showed any aggression to humans.

She should meet up with our Casey, he's like that, loves to play and chase around, I do put him on lead when a small dog is approaching, that's only because he bounds up to them like an out of control Exocet missile With the medium to large dogs I leave them to it.

We only had two but Baruska would often leave some of her meal for Rianna to finish. I came to believe (rightly or wrongly) that she wanted to see her pack all got fed.

How would Baruskas breeder have known, usually seems to show itself about puberty at 15 months or so, there isn't a leader born in every litter either, because in nature that would not work for the pack, once you understand what you've got, then you have to go about managing it, but its actually the understanding that is vital. This obsession with 'dangerous' dogs is used to cover a variety of scenarios, and you and others can be very easily swept away with it and fail to see what is under your nose. Observation of various goings on is necessary to come to a workable solution, not write your dog off immediately, but actually work with your dog and get the right help and input if you are unable to find a way through

Maybe he is just super protective of his 'pack' you and all at your house.

I have just had this mental image of him and Baruska meeting, would have been either the most almighty punch up, or just maybe the 'love in' of the century