Tips on How to Stop Dogs From Fighting Infrequently

For this West LA dog training session, we worked with India and Malta; sharing tips to stop dogs from fighting infrequently.

We started the session outside as India has a tendency to bark at strangers. Anytime I’m dealing with a fearful or reactive dog, I always try to meet them outside.

Meeting outside set the dog up for success. The open space makes dogs feel less cornered, the distractions of nature help them not hyper fixate on something and it being public space takes away some dogs guarding behavior.

It didn’t take long for me to become friends with India. Once that was accomplished, we headed inside so I could meet Malta who was the more fearful of the 2 dogs in some capacities. Malta was rescued after being in a dog meat farm. These dogs are not socialized or really cared for very well as they are raised exclusively to eat. As a result, Malta’s trust in humans is spotty to say the least.

I cover a number of dog behavior fundamentals. These are designed to help ensure that the humans and dogs are communicating in a way that each other understand, eliminate common errors that humans make and build dogs confidence. Just like humans, if a dog is insecure, they’re more likely to be reactive. Confident dogs are able to often brush off or adapt to unusual situations much better.

We introduced a marker word, used hand targeting to help the guardians practice their timing, went over dog consent, body language and cut off signals, some creative forms of exercise as well as a number of other dog behavior tips. These may not be directly related to the occassional fights between dogs, but having these fundamentals in place is crucial when you want to do any dog behavior modification work.

Although many of these exercises are not directly related to dogs fighting each other, they will help by eliminating confusion and building the dogs confidence.

Tips to Stop Dogs From Fighting

Although India and Malta do fight with each other from time to time, the majority of the time they are fine with each other. The main issue stems from Malta not recognizing India’s body language or cut off signals. Not recognizing and responding to cut off signals is often the main reason when there are fights between dogs.

I decided that the best way to stop dogs from fighting in this situation was to create a command cue that causes the dogs to move away from one another. Since the dogs have dog beds that are positioned in different parts of the living room, I decided to use go to your dog bed as one of the ways to stop dogs from fighting.

If you have a couple of dogs that live together and one of them doesn’t read or respond to the other dogs cut off signals, you should definitely check out the free positive dog training video below.

By teaching Malta to go to a specific dog bed on queue, the guardians can help India by giving that cue anytime that she gives Malta a cut off signal.

This is really important as it will solve the problem of Malta being too close. Additionally, if the guardians have really good timing, Malta will become conditioned to move to the dog bed anytime she sees India offering a cutoff signal.

This is a great way to stop dogs from fighting if the conflict results from one of the dogs not listening to the other. I also shared a number of other tips in the video to give the humans some other things they can do to stop dog fights from happening.

I also made sure to cover some tips on what to do during and after a dog fight. Many people mistakenly just separate them after a dog fight until the next day. The problem with that is the most recent memory with the other dog is of the negative encounter

For that reason I recommended the guardians start taking the dogs out for a walk together after a fight. We just want to build in a positive joint association where they’re not targeting each other and going outside, with all the distractions, is a great solution. If it happens in the middle of the night, the guardians could do a little pair treating if they don’t wanna go outside.

Towards the end of the session, Malta started to bark to disagree with my presence. Most dogs sleep 12 to 16 hours a day so long encounters that prevent them from doing so can often result in dogs that are a little crabby.

I pulled out my phone and sat down on the floor so I could record a roadmap to success summary video. I always try to do this with my clients to make it easy for them to remember all of the positive dog training tips I covered in this in-home West LA dog training session.