Good morning, Jessa -- I'm sorry you're having this behavior issue with Justice. Most of us have at one point or other, witnessed signs of aggressive dogs like bared teeth, growling, and biting, yet often people do not understand the reasons for aggressive behavior in dogs. Getting a good grasp of the underlying reasons for this aggressive behavior is the first step to learning to curb them in your own dog. SOMEthing is triggering Justice's aggression, and I'm not there so can't actually *see* what is happening. So all I can do is generalize my response in this situation, ok?
Along with dominance as one of the reasons for aggressive behavior in dogs, the dog's territorial nature is also common. Dogs often consider their home and family as a possession, and they will protect them all fiercely. Aggressive behavior may occur when a dog feels that someone has intruded on its space or is threatening its family... or they might be competing with another dog for the dominant position in the pack. While it may be one of the admirable reasons for aggressive behavior in dogs, it is still undesirable and unacceptable in the world of human beings.
Also, it is not uncommon for a "stronger" dog to pick on a "weaker" dog. It's the way of pack behavior...it's simply how it is and once again although it's natural behavior for dogs, it's unacceptable behavior for humans.
Justice is doing one of two things. I believe he's either establishing himself as the dominant dog in the pack... or he's merely being possessive of you. This has NOTHING to do with how much attention you are or are not giving to Justice, but either way.. the behavior is not acceptable and needs to be corrected.
You may unknowingly be making the behavior worse, if you attempt to "be fair" and treat both dogs equally (instead of supporting the position of the dominant dog)... or you may even be unaware that you are giving what is viewed as dominance signals to the subordinate dog, such as punishing or removing the dominant dog for threatening the other dog, taking his food, taking his toys, or forcing the dogs to “share”... or any other aggression he's showing towards Blue.
As human beings, we often want to make things "fair" or "equal", and help out the underdog. Our natural tendency may be to try to correct problems by making the dogs share toys or do what seems more just to us. Unfortunately, this just exacerbates the problem and confuses the dogs. This is truly something I have just recently learned myself. I used to ALWAYS take up for the underdog. And...you can't choose or interfere with which dog is dominant. The dogs establish the order among themselves. If you try to change things around, you will probably increase the problems and fighting.
Do not treat the dogs equally or punish the dominant dog (i.e. save the underdog). Do not remove the dominant dog. This communicates the wrong hierarchy message and reinforces the dominance challenge.
Do not get in between fighting dogs, or you may get bitten. (This is known as redirected aggression. Your dog isn't intentionally biting you; you are just in the way.). Throw a blanket over them, bang pots and pans, whistle, clap, spray them with water, go out and ring the doorbell to distract them, but never attempt to grab one or the other when they are fighting.
Please remember that you and your family should be viewed by the dogs as dominant over all dogs in your household. This is not done through force, but by body language and leadership. Pack leadership can be clearly communicated by hierarchy signals, with you & your husband always going through doorways first for example... eating first, getting the comfiest spot, etc. If your dog is threatening anyone in your family or over-guarding people or items, there are things you can do to correct that.
For the time-being, I would not allow EITHER dog to get in your lap...and I would have a place for each dog to be and it would NOT be on the couch with you. Do you have beds on the floor for them? If so, put each dog in his/her bed and make it stay there while you ... or you and hubby ... sit on the couch. MAKE them stay there... (you might even consider crating them if they are not trained yet to stay in their "place" . This way, NO dog is getting more treatment than the other and there is no territory being threatened.
The key is that YOU will need to gain enough control to have Justice sit and stay on command. In fact, this is something all of your dogs need to know. Once they have the commands engrained and obey the commands... take turns allowing each dog to come up to you while the other ones sit & stay (or are crated).
I would suggest.. if you can... to not walk Justice and Blue together... walk them separately for awhile. MUCH can be said for preventing an opportunity for Justice to be aggressive... especially until he is trained to do what you ask him to do.
(I just re-read this... I'm going into a meeting and will be tied up all day. I wrote this in a rush, but did not want to NOT respond to you. Situations such as this can be very upsetting to us humans. Please email me if you have any specific questions and I'll be happy to try to clarify anything I wrote here or add something else. I do wish you luck in this situation!) Situations such as yours are not simple and it's hard to give a clear cut response... sorry this is so long.
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