ChowChow.org

My 15 week old puppies are all of a sudden fighting for REAL! We have 4 kids so it's a super busy and lively house. The puppies have been doing great, we take them allover, they're around a lot of kids all the time... We go on car rides, we use firm voice commands for negative behavior and they've been responding great to it. They get praises, hugs & kisses all day, run around outside, I mean what could possibly have triggered this?!?!?!

I have a similar situation with my male/female siblings (both spayed/neutered). In our case it seems the female is the dominant dog, and on many occasions growls and is aggressive toward her brother. I'm wondering if it stems from jealousy as the male is very close to me even though I give them both much attention. She also is finnicky about other things, and gets aggressive when I'm preparing the evening dog meal. I now make them sit on either side of me while I'm preparing it.

Many litter mates have this problem. That's one of the reasons MOST reputable breeders won't allow someone to buy litter mates. I honestly don't have any advice. All I can say is when they fight, give them a firm no and put them in "time out"(lock them in separate bathrooms(or any room with a door) and leave them there for about 5-10 minutes).

My chow sisters are 6 months old today and spade a few weeks ago--everything was great they walk well, allow me to control all aspects of food such as being able to take anything out of their mouth--I have owned them before so I knew I could be the Alpha and be firm. But all of the sudden they are fighting. And it's escualting past the point of where they might do harm. It happened just recently when my daughter came for a visit to spend the night they both wanted all her attention which was always fine in the past and now they can't seem to calm down. They are seperated right now--and same story many of you hear --the breeder couldn't find a home for the 8th puppy (another female) I never had trouble like this before but we never had litter mates. We may have to give up one of them and they are so good in everything else but this. Any Ideas???

Dogs are pack animals, and they do compete for ranking in the pack. You are the Alpha, so you have some control. You are not going to be able to stop all of it, but you can limit it so that no one gets hurt. If my two get started, I usually yell Hey, and Stop, and Clap my hands, trying to make a loud staccato sound. That is just to get everyone's attention. Usually that is enough to break things up, because they know their actions are disturbing me (the Alpha). With our other dogs, we would send them to their "designated corners" i.e. "Go to your bed". Of course with Chows, if I say "go to your bed", they would look at me like I am talking some strange language. Tippsy's mom probably has the best idea with the time out in separate rooms. As they get older, this should diminish.