Post by Aussienot on Aug 26, 2006 1:04:03 GMT -5
I have always been a tiny bit skeptical of reports of early age aggression but I saw my first case of actual interlitter aggression this week.
There was a litter of 4 approximately more or less Mastiff x Shar Pei x Pit puppies coming from a foster carer from the far south coast that were bound for another shelter in the north. The volunteer said something about them being rescued off the back of a ute (flatbed truck).
The delivery driver only got as far as our shelter before closing time. We were short of room, but the volunteer had driven for six hours and needed to return home that evening so he could not take them any further. After a few confirming phone calls, we took over the relay to the other shelter.
They couldn't send a collection van out for them until two days later, so we had the "pleasure" of hosting the litter from hell for 48 long hours. These were handsome, large, healthy, robust puppies, reportedly about 6 weeks old but our vet put them at closer to five weeks. A couple of them were quite cutely marked.
We put them in pairs into 2 adjoining kennels and started to process the paperwork. They were there for about 20 minutes when the fighting broke out. This was not normal puppy play. It was rough, skin tearing, ear ripping, throat crushing attempts to cause lasting harm to each other. It had the intensity of an adult dog fight. We broke up the fights and mixed up the pairs - with the same outcome. The puppies were fighting each other. We ended up having to put them in four separate kennels with barrier screens between. These puppies are massively dog aggressive at six weeks of age! If someone was breeding for fight drive they certainly succeeded.
The puppies relentlessly barked and howled for about 36 hours. I longed to sedate them. However, the next day they did play nicely in the pen together. Go figure. There was general rejoicing when we had seen the back of the little hell rats.
Has anyone else ever seen this behavior, or is it truly abhorrent? I have read Lindsay until my head spins (ok, he always makes my head spin) but even there I couldn't find anything specifically describing puppy to puppy aggression. Can someone please explain it to me?
There was a litter of 4 approximately more or less Mastiff x Shar Pei x Pit puppies coming from a foster carer from the far south coast that were bound for another shelter in the north. The volunteer said something about them being rescued off the back of a ute (flatbed truck).
The delivery driver only got as far as our shelter before closing time. We were short of room, but the volunteer had driven for six hours and needed to return home that evening so he could not take them any further. After a few confirming phone calls, we took over the relay to the other shelter.
They couldn't send a collection van out for them until two days later, so we had the "pleasure" of hosting the litter from hell for 48 long hours. These were handsome, large, healthy, robust puppies, reportedly about 6 weeks old but our vet put them at closer to five weeks. A couple of them were quite cutely marked.
We put them in pairs into 2 adjoining kennels and started to process the paperwork. They were there for about 20 minutes when the fighting broke out. This was not normal puppy play. It was rough, skin tearing, ear ripping, throat crushing attempts to cause lasting harm to each other. It had the intensity of an adult dog fight. We broke up the fights and mixed up the pairs - with the same outcome. The puppies were fighting each other. We ended up having to put them in four separate kennels with barrier screens between. These puppies are massively dog aggressive at six weeks of age! If someone was breeding for fight drive they certainly succeeded.
The puppies relentlessly barked and howled for about 36 hours. I longed to sedate them. However, the next day they did play nicely in the pen together. Go figure. There was general rejoicing when we had seen the back of the little hell rats.
Has anyone else ever seen this behavior, or is it truly abhorrent? I have read Lindsay until my head spins (ok, he always makes my head spin) but even there I couldn't find anything specifically describing puppy to puppy aggression. Can someone please explain it to me?