Hi,
We have an 8 year old female boxer (Suiza) an outside dog, and my Wife has 2 small house dogs.(Suiza has never had puppies and is not fixed.) The small house dogs have a seperate fenced area in the backyard to play in that is seperate from Suiza's. We live on several acres of fenced property in the country that Suiza has full access to except for the seperate fenced back yard. She has her bed in the garage with heated blanket. She is our watch dog and family guardian. Even though she is an outside dog, we try and give her lots of attention and love. My wife goes on frequent runs and tries to take Suiza as often as possible. We got Suiza when she was a pup and at that time we had an older adult female boxer that treated Suiza like she was her own pup. They got along wonderfully until one day when Suiza was a little over a year old she attacked our older boxer for no reason. This happened several times and eventually we had to keep them seperated. We assumed at the time it was a problem of having 2 adult female dogs together. I realize now it was a dominance issue that should have been treated then.Our older boxer passed away a couple of years ago. We have always kept the 2 house dogs seperated from Suiza because we were'nt sure if we could trust her. Other than that she is a wonderful well behaved dog that wants to please. We just brought home an 8 week old male boxer puppy (Buster) hoping to give Suiza some companionship and also hoping Buster could pickup some of Suiza's good watchdog traits. She was so exited and seemed to treat Buster as if he were her own puppy teaching him how to play etc. Since we've got Buster we've kept him inside in the laundry room area of the house and have been working on potty training and frequently take him out to play with Suiza. After about a week an a half we decided to try and move a seperate (heated) bed out in the garage for Buster also. He loved it and they actually even slept in each others bed. Then the following day out of the blue while they were playing, Suiza attacked Buster for no apparent reason. It seemed like much more than a mere snap to correct Buster, and luckily I was nearby. I scolded Suiza and took Buster inside. He was fine. I thought that maybe Buster had pawed Suiza accidently while they were playing so later I decided to cautiously put them together once more. Everthing was great again. Suiza grabbed a rawhide bone and teased Buster with it and off they went to play on the lawn. They would steal it from one another and Suiza was OK with that. Eventually Buster made off with the rawhide bone and Suiza and I found him burying it. We both stood back and watched patiently while he finished burying the bone. I was petting Suiza and joking with her about how funny Buster (now 10 weeks old) looked burying this big old bone. As soon as Buster finished, He turned and came back to us and Suiza immediately attacked him with what seemed like intention to Kill! Buster is now back in the house seperated from Suiza and I'm reading and researching like crazy. I have read the alpha dog book, the guide to dog aggression and most of the secrets to dog training. I am starting the training process as described in the books but I'm still not quite sure what is triggering Suiza to attack so viciously out of the blue. I'm determined to make this work between Suiza and Buster. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
