Female malamute being same sex aggressive

[ariatgirl]

My malamute ,Denali, has started to become more and more aggressive toward other female dogs. She's 1 year and has had lots of socialization and she knows that myself and my fiance are dominant. I know its common for female dogs to become territorial and try to dominate each other. I have a female corgi she's been around her for her entire life and recently has taken to attacking her. There hasn't been any broken skin yet. My question is to fellow malamute/husky owners or trainers: does anyone have any good training techniques to get her to either accept her place in our pack or get her to stop doing this?

[Jumajum]

Is she spayed? That usually helps take the territorial edge off.

I would also work on desensitization. Get her to settle down when the other dog is in the room but not in her zone. Reward her for being calm then slowly move them closer, reward and praising her for being calm. If she lunges for the other dog, reset and start again. As you get her closer to the other dog, up to treat quality. So work from ok treat to great treat to awesome treat to jackpot treat. She'll learn that being close to the other dog and staying calm is a good thing .

[bendyfoot]

Around the first birthday is a pretty typical time for dogs to "test the waters" and challenge the authority of mature dogs in the household/pack, especially if they naturally have more dominant personalities.

Spaying both females (if they aren't already) can definitely help, but it's not necessarily a sure-fire cure. We had a rocky couple of months when our youngest dog reached the age of one and started to challenge our eldest, alpha female (both were spayed at the time). There were a handful of really nasty, bloody fights. Luckily no one was hurt too badly, but they were not much fun. The thing is, if it's a dominance thing, there's not much you can do about it other than supervise carefully, isolate the dogs from eachother when you can't supervise, do lots of positive, fun activities (but NOT ones where excitement levels get too high - excitement can lead to aggression) with BOTH dogs, be safe, and break up fights safely when they happen. Dogs need to establish their own pecking order, and although we can influence it somewhat, most of it has to happen between the dogs themselves. When we meddle too much with what is pretty normal behaviour, we can sometimes make things worse. It could very well be that your corgi will NOT be the dominant dog at the end of this.

In our house, we basically did what I said above...supervised, kept play fun but low-key and controlled (i.e. brought it down or paused the play when the energy levels got too high), watched them closely, and let them sort it out. After about 3 months, the fights stopped. Our alpha maintained her status, and the younger dog defers to her (but is still a brat-luckily our older dog is a very stable leader and puts up with a lot of bratty nonsense). It's entirely possible that, as our oldest dog ages further and becomes a senior, we could see the dominance roles changed again. These things are rarely 100% stable/fixed.

Be warned: it IS possible that your two females will simply not be able to coexists. It's not the norm, but it's a possibility. Work on enforcing your own leadership role in the house, keep the environment safe and calm, ensure all dogs get plently of exercise, and hopefully this time of turmoil will pass.

[ariatgirl]

They are both spayed. They can be in the same room and close to each other without incident. It doesn't happen every day but it happens often. I know the corgi won't be the dominant female because she's already submissive. Its just like she lashes out on her for no reason. I'll keep close watch on them. Thank you all for the feed back

[Bailey_]

Can you tell us what you do right now when your husky reacts this way? You mentioned that your female husky knows that you and your fiance are "dominant" - do you mind elaborating? Why do you think this - and what is your husky doing to show this to you?

[ariatgirl]

We use the food technique where we give her the food so she knows we control food. We also use the Caesar Millian method. When she submits she rolls onto her back and doesn't get up until we say ok. We've never abused her or hit her. When she attacks the other dog we use the Caesar Millian method and take her to the ground until she submits, which is usually pretty soon if not right away.