We have just moved into a new neighborhood with our two mini longhair Dachshunds. Odie is 4 and his niece, LuLu is 9 months. Both are altered. Odie had some professional obedience training and is such a sweet dog (his full name is Otis Spunkmyer after the cookie as he is 'one smart cookie and sweet enough to eat!'). He is all Dachshund though. As his trainer said, 'he understands his commands perfectly - he just chooses to ignore them!' Since the move Odie has been rushed at and nipped by our new neighbor's 2 y.o. male bearded collie who is allowed to run off leash. We always leash Odie outside as he has a tendancy to run. Is the leash the problem? After having just signed up with your course we realize that we are not totally in the Alpha dog position and have adopted your suggestions to attain that status. However, when Odie sees the neighbors dog out in the yard he begins this high pitched yelping (sounds like he is being skinned alive). We would like to be able to get with the neighbor and arrange a meeting of the two dogs, in the correct environment, and let the dogs figure it out without our interference. Can you guide us? We envision placing them in the neighbor's fenced yard (as our yard is not fenced), without any toys to fight over, and go inside where they cannot see us. We want to know how to handle things if a fight does ensue? Their dog just plays rough and I think Odie just reacts to their owner's yelling! When do we ignore and when do we step in? Looking forward to being neighborly!
I am sorry to hear that your Odie got nipped by the Bearded Collie. It sounds like a nice idea to let them meet in a proper setting early in the stage before they get to aggressive to each other over the fence or being leashed. They tend to get more aggressive when separated by a fence or leashed.
I would strongly recommend that both you and your neighbor be present though. Especially when there is a big difference in sizes of the two dogs and there has been an incident that your dog has been nipped.
Also, I would recommend you choose a neutral place instead of the property of one of you two. Is there a dog park nearby? You and your neighbor can bring the dogs (not all at the same time but little staggered times) early in the morning or sometime when it is not too crowded. The reason why choosing a dog park is that it is a neutral place and also there are all kinds of other dogs smells so that the two dogs can encounter each other without being too tense rather than one on one in a tense situation.
When you do this, observe carefully what kind of "calming signals" each dog sends out. Allow them to spend enough time to greet each other in a proper manner. You can find a lot of info and photos on Internet and attached is some info about "calming signals".
In case a fight breaks out, pick up your dogs hind legs and lift them like pulling a wheel barrow to separate him from the other dog. However, dogs usually don't like to go that far.
Wow!! What great information. Thank you soooo much for the link to Calming Signals Community. I wish every dog owner could read this to understand their pet and do the best thing for him/her. I'm going to post a link to my FB page.
