Specific negative behaviors (if any)
I have 6 Samoyed Huskies, and until around 2 months ago, I never had an issue with any of them but in the last 8 weeks problems have started with one of the dogs. I will give you a little background to what has happened. I had 4 Samoyeds, and we had a litter of beautiul little fluffballs this time last year. I rehomed all the puppies and that was great, but a couple of months later, one the people I gave a puppy to who is also a friend of mine, she split from her husband and they were selling the house, so she asked me to take her back which I did. I had no issues whatsoever when she came back and things were great with the 5 dogs. In January, I got a text from another person i gave a puppy to saying that their Burnese Mountain Dog has started to become aggressive with the Samoyed puppy, and this wasn't getting any better so they asked if I knew someone trustworthy that would adopt the dog so i told them I would take the dog back. I live in a large property with loads of space so i have no issues having another puppy, but when the pup came to my property, the first thing he did was lay down outside the front door and wouldn't come in. The owner then said ''Please Beau, don't make me lift you in'' which straight away told me this was a common occurrence. When he did come in, he jumped on the sofa and didn't come down for 2 hours. As someone with lots of Samoyeds, it's not very common for them to lay on the couch for that long as they tend to get too warm, so I knew he was a bit shook from his experience with this Burnese. I introduced my dogs to him individually and there was no issues, most dogs were just intrigued and one of the 5 is his sister, so they knew each other from when they were puppies. Over the next 3 or 4 days, the other 2 male dogs were showing dominance by putting their head on his back and just following him around which I assume is normal enough when another male joins a pack of dogs. This subsided, and for the next couple of months everything was great. After this, beau started to pee on my bed, he would get on top of my bed and growl at the other males to basically tell this this was his territory. I noticed this sort of thing for a couple of weeks and my thought process was that he was coming in to his prime and is fighting for his position as one of the top dogs. He seemed to be showing more animosity to his father than the other male, but I think he sees the other male as the boss, so he focused his attention on the father. I was out walking the dogs one Saturday, and when I came home, a fight broke out between the pup and the father, and the other male jumped in to also help the pup. I have never had 2 dogs fight like that, and certainly never had 3 dogs fight so it was a very scary experience. I managed to get the dogs apart, and there was no serious injuries but there was lots of little marks. I actually had to separate the father from the other dogs because the pup was still itching to fight with him even after it had all settled. This pattern continued for a couple of weeks where fights would just break out randomly. You could feel a bit of tension whenever the two of them were together at night and out playing, but no problems when they are in my office everyday, so it just happened at certain times. Dinner time was another issue between the dogs. I decided to get them all neutered after these few weeks because it was consuming my life. Every time I left the house, I would open the cameras and watch them until I came home because I was petrified of the dogs ripping each other apart. I got the two older males done first, and then about a week later, there was a fight again between the father and the pup, but the father had a cone on, so he couldn't fight back and the pup cut the fathers paw, maybe 5cm wide and I had to take him to the vet to get it stitched 🙈 I then decided to also neuter the pup because things were getting out of hand, and I thought at least with the cones on, nobody can fight - how wrong I was! For the next two weeks, I had no fights at all, a little animosity yes, but there wasn't anytime where I thought a fight would break out, until last Friday. In the office, the pup was constantly growling at not the father, but the other male, which was strange. That evening, the pup then started fighting with the father again, and he got a tooth in to the leg. He was fine, but again, I was back where I was 4 weeks prior. The fought a few more times over the weekend so i decided to bring the pup to a friend of mine who owns kennels and she is currently looking after him. He has been there since Monday, and now I want to find someone who can help me with the situation as my heart is very heavy ay the moment without him here. There is not one ounce of aggression with any of my dogs, and Beau is actually the sweetest dog you could ever meet. He fights with nobody except Jasper, his father. I went to the kennels with him on Monday, and spent maybe two hours there, and you could see he was nervous of the other dogs that were there. There were 5 females just running about and playing, and this cockapoo was mad to play with him, but he was letting little growls out of him and just looked a bit nervous and unsure of the other dogs, even though they were tiny and just wanted to play. He has been there for 4 days and when I spoke with my friend yesterday, she said he is now doing great with all the other dogs. I think that whatever that Burnese did to him before he came to me is deeply seeded in his mind, and that maybe he feels threatened by Jasper, so he keeps lashing out at him. Jasper is an absolute sweetheart, but he is definitely overstimulated. He barks more than the other dogs, he gets more upset when i leave than the other dogs etc but there is not an ounce of badness in him which makes the whole situation really upsetting and frustrating! I'm hopeful there is something we can do in this situation, and I am fairly certain that it all stems back to his time with the previous owner. He was with them for about 5 months, and I think the last two months were very difficult with the other dog being aggressive towards him. Perhaps he sees all dogs as a threat now because of this, I don't know, but I do think there might be a way to calm the situation and reunite Beau with the other dogs. Would this be something you could help with? Sorry about the long email, I just wanted to give you a good idea of what is going on. There is plenty more, and I have videos from the cameras of some of the fights so if anything like that is important then I have them there. Gary
