We ran into an interesting situation last night
we were visiting a neighbors’s place, who also has a female mongrel dog (younger than Etta) and they used to get along ok. There’s a 3rd female dog also visiting.
Etta was slightly distant but after about an hour she started to play with both dogs just fine, good mood, very happy.
Then she got thirsty and I brought out our bowl and put it in the host dog’s crate (because there is a towel). shortly after, I start to notice Etta humped the home dog and later they got into a small fight (growling and snapping at each other). (None of us saw what exactly triggered it tho).
Both had their time out, no more fights happened the rest of night, but Etta started to guard the entire living room including host dog’s crate and would growl if anyone comes close.
The night still went generally well but I am still curious
1) did the bowl in crate trigger the whole thing?
2) besides meeting in neutral areas etc what can we do to avoid similar cases?
3) will dog hold grudges over such conflicts over time?
Hi Silvia! Thank you for sharing your experience! There are so many things we can talk about in your posts! Below, I'll share a little bit about dog socialization. There are a some things we look at during interactions. As it is with humans, first meetings are very important as it sets the tone for the interactions. However, unlike humans where direct face to face are seen as proper etiquette (imagine Harvey Specter from the tv series Suits), being too direct is percieved as aggressive for dogs! Assuming all dogs are meeting for the first time and off leash, you would expect them to have their head down, tail slightly wagging in a neutral position, and approaching to sniff from the side and the back. There will be a mutual snifftroduction in the first 10-15 seconds. Everything else should proceed to a friendly and relaxed interaction. Some would walk away, some would invite play, some would continue to focus on doing their "business". Ideally, you would want them to just walk around and following each other or proceed to play through a gentle invitation, such as playbows. As handlers, we'd want them to be as uninterrupted as possible. I will later on include dog and human body language topics in the blog section and workshops. To answer your questions: - did the presentation of water bowl (resource) trigger the fight? I will not say it is impossible, as some dogs have learn to guard resources. But as a safety precaution, especially with dogs we don't know (e.g. dog parks, friend's dogs), we want resources to be accessed uninterrupted. We can do this by calling our dog away. Should other dogs also want the resources we are presenting, provide another source. - meeting outdoors during walks work because they spend time before/after the introduction focused on something else that relaxes them. Of course, it's another case if walks or the environment stresses your dog. It is best if we find a calmer/neutral place to introduce our dogs, at their own pace. - dogs don't hold grudges, but they remember experiences and associates it to the "trigger". There are many factors to consider before I can provide a conclusive answer to the situation you have shared. It's the individual dog experience/history, temperament, situation at that moment, the environmental factors such as space, sound, visuals and others that stimulates the senses, body language, etc. It could've been any of the dogs that have reacted to anything that caused a chain behavioral reaction. More blogs will be added that'll cover all those topics!