Reactive Dog Advice

Hi all,

Back in mid January there was an altercation with my dogs and my in-laws dog. I’ll try to make this as easy to follow as possible, but it’s a lot. Nicknames for the dogs, my dogs = Cow and Sassy, in-laws dog = Birdy.

To preface, my dog sassy is a reactive dog. We’ve known this for years and take a lot of precautions to prevent bad situations.

We asked my in-laws to watch our pups while my husband and I went out with SIL and her bf. When we got back to pick them up, a fight broke out between Birdy and Sassy. Through the combination of the video feed and my own POV, here are my best estimates of exactly what happened.

We got to the house, the three dogs were all high energy and running around. Birdy went to the corner where her crate (and from what I’ve been told, her bones within the crate) were. The corner was just outside of the frame of the camera, but there is audio feed. Cow ran into that corner, we heard Birdy aggressively bark and then you can see Sassy lunge into the frame. From previous experiences of Birdy with other dogs, my guess was that she barked and lunged at cow to defend her territory. Sassy grabbed a hold of Birdy ear and my husband and FIL grabbed them and worked to pry them apart. It took a few minutes as Sassy would not let go. But they were separated, Sassy was put in the car, and after some words we left.

During all of this, Cows collar somehow came off. It is visible in the beginning of the video, and off by the last 3/4 of the fight. It couldn’t have been Sassy as her mouth was preoccupied and my husband and FIL swear up and down that they did not touch her. This leads me to believe that at some point Birdy grabbed cow, but it was outside of the video and while we did find red marks, there was not blood or split skin.

The situation was terrifying for all involved, but my In-Lawd keep bringing up that Sassy would not let go and have stated that they believe we should get rid of her. I need advice in how to prevent a situation like this from ever happening again and if I should be very concerned about Sassy and her ability to interact with other people and dogs.