Dog fights are severe, risky, and frightening. And if your pet cat is involved, your automatic response will be to run into the fray to save them. It is critical for your and your dog’s safety that you understand how to recognize and tear up a dog fight, as Break Up a Fight Between Dogs can causesignificant attacks.
What Causes Dogs to Fight?
Dogs fight for various reasons, including territorial resource guarding, toys, or food. They may also react out of fear. When they feel threatened, a few dogs go out on the offensive, hoping to scare the other dog away. Anger also can lead to destructive behavior, particularly in dogs that have not learned empathy and self. A dog can be pushed beyond their tolerance limit. This can happen with a reactionary dog swamped by specific stimuli or a dog in pain and thus lacks patience.
The best policy is prevention:
Because there are so many reasons and the repercussions of a dog fight are so severe, prevention is the best approach. Learn to read dog nonverbal cues and recognize signs of stress in your dog. If you notice your dog getting close to the edge of one’s comfort zone, interact with and eliminate them from the situation. You’d instead predict a fight before it happens than wait until it’s too late.
Redirected aggressive behavior is expected in dogs who are otherwise friendly or live around each other. For example, when one dog cannot obtain what it desires or becomes overly upset, it may take its frustrations out on its closest buddy simply because it is the closest target.