Cocker Specific Discussion > Behaviour & Training

litter mates fighting

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Lindaphills:
Hi all
Have a gorgeous golden girl called Jess, ten weeks old and my mum has her litter mate, another golden bitch named Abbie.  Trouble is when I took Jess up to my mum's garden to meet Abbie, they got quite nasty.  They were playing originally and it was really funny to watch them enjoying each others company, but things seemed quickly to get really nasty from there!!!  They were baring their teeth and really going for each other.  In the end I had to step in to stop things as they seemed to be really ferocious!!!!!
Please, is this normal?  Will we ever be able to socialise together as we planned to walk them together and generally hang out together as well if you know what I mean.  
Any advice greatly appreciated as it would be awful if we could never have them together.  Another thing is mum was going to have Jess in ten months time for us to go on holiday for a week.
Help
Linda                    

PennyB:
You should see Wilf play with a Welsh terrier who's the same age as him. I'd leave them to it unless one or the other is obviously getting hurt. These sort of things often look far worse than they really are and it is their way of learning.

Sometimes if they go too far in that they can get too overexcited I'd distract them rather than separate them and then try to calm them down—sort of time out.                    

Loraine:
Hi

I have two cockers who are 8 months apart.  I was a lot like you and and really freaked out when they started 'fighting'.  As PennyB says it often looks worse than it is and I usually leave them to it - they sort things out.  If it gets too much I distract them with a squeaky ball or something.  The next minute they are curled up together and you wouldn't imagine that they were 'fighting' shortly before.                    

Lindaphills:
Thanks all,
This has definitely reassured me.  They bite each others ears and everything and theres lots of yelps of pain!!!!  You can distract them for a moment, but then they're right back to it.  Do dogs know and recognise their blood family like humans.  Probably sounds daft to you but I really have no idea.
We will stick with it anyway.  They will have to get along as they will be seeing quite a lot of each other in the future!!!

Ta for your replies, really means a lot
Linda                    

PennyB:
Wilf has what looks like a blazing fight with dogs of his own age (he's now 5 months) and size and if the owner of the other tries to separate them even though it looks like Wilf is coming off worse Wilf strikes back with even more teeth and energy. He came across a lovely 4 month old springer bitch the other day and was having a great time, but her owner was scared that her dog was giving Wilf a hard time even though I kept saying they were fine and just playing. The owner put her dog on the lead though and took her away, which was sad for her dog really.

I have another cocker, Ruby (now 18 months old) who's Wilf's half sister and sometimes it really sounds like she's doing damage. I usually wait a few minutes if Wilf starts yelping to see if he's OK, and generally they've either cooled off to do something else or gone back in there for another round. While there's a size difference here I always put him in the crate if I go out but generally let them get on with it throughout the day while I'm around.

Just as two pups will play fight, an adult dog might chastise a pup that sounds awful but is really just a telling off (which Ruby the bossy so and so is more than willing to demonstrate sometimes).

Good puppy classes are very useful to be able to learn this sort of thing, but then its finding the good puppy class that can be the real problem sometimes.

Its a horrible learning curve really about knowing when to and when not to interfere.                    

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