Posted by Cathy
on February 17, 2009, 8:34 pm, in reply to "Re: Common Sense as opposed to Theory"
It really does happen in a split second, but you can make arrangements to keep potential brawls at a minimum. For example -- my friend and his female 14 year old German Short Hair Pointer stopped by over the weekend on his way from San Diego to Santa Cruz. He called to tell me he would be stopping by, so I removed all dog toys, bones, anything that could cause any dog ownership difficulties. Bodhi would probably be OK with an older female dog being interested in one of his Kongs, but why risk it -- he's much younger and stronger and could do serious damage to a geriatric Pointer. For safety sake, don't feed dogs together -- they may eat together just fine for years and one day -- bam it happens, a real food fight. Breaking 2 small dogs apart in a fight can be accomplished by one person and will surely get you a few puncture holes, but 2 full grown mastiff type dogs, will take 2 strong adults with breaking sticks -- and it will be the wrestling match of your life. Once the 2 dogs have gone at it with each other, usually you will have to keep them always separated. You certainly could never leave them together unsupervised -- it only takes a nano-second of eye contact. Mastiff type dogs will generally never back down from a challenge and that eye contact is the challenge. You may never see it, and think the event started for no reason. Dogs do have a very subtle language and it's easy to not be aware. Keep constantly aware.
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