This is often a very complex, emotional situation. Most people don’t have daily experience with violence, with either dogs or humans. The blood starts pumping when you hear a dog bark / growl or a person yell. Noise is usually the first indicator of violence. The fight/flight/freeze response takes over.
Whether you view or are physically involved in dog “fight”, once it is over you have an overwhelming need to do whatever you can to avoid it happening again. Dog on dog aggression is hard to witness, even more so if it is between two or more of your own dogs. If it seems to happen all of a sudden even more devastating. Your first reaction will be to separate the dogs into different crates or rooms. This is NOT a solution. It will add to the stress to both your family and the dogs. Sometimes even what we see as serious violence is no big deal to the dogs. As one brother said to my wife is Sunday school when corrected for hitting his brother “but he is my brother”
In most cases I have handled in pack aggression always stems from the same thing. A human has not stepped up to take the pack leader position and enforced it by communicating using movement and touch which is the language of canines. Dogs will not fight to be 2nd or 3rd like they will for number 1. You need to be #1 when it comes to controlling food, water, space, toys, and attention AKA the Canine Commodities. The dog has only three things to focus on in the world ; distractions in the environment, other dogs, or the pack leader.
In pack aggression comes from the dogs focusing on the other dogs and not the pack leader. I am very forward with people when they say they have in pack aggression. In most cases I can help, but only someone is willing to be a pack leader. If not their is nothing I can do. You have to learn to act like a dog, not human.
First we work with the dogs individually, then we do an MCS Pack Walk as in the video below. Then they are put into a outside confined space such as a yard, then a confined inside space such as the house.
The pack walk teaches them to see you as the pack leader as they both look to you for input, instead of each other. Outside we work on interrupting behaviors by bringing the focus back to you and off each other. Behaviors go from 1-10, most people are not getting involved until a 8,9, or even a 10. A behavior redirected consistently at a 1-2 does not escalate to a 10. This redirection can not be done with talking or treats. The three corrections we use, two by touch, one with a noise need to “startle” the dog. Like us they don’t like to be startled, this behavior becomes unattractive and they stop doing it. This is the way we teach everything.
When owners identify situations in which they cannot control their dog they avoid them. The solution is guiding the dog through these situations and shaping their behavior. For example, if you have a dog that goes crazy when trucks by, you take the dog to the busiest street corner you can and redirect the dog to back to you every time they respond at all to a truck. Once you remove speech and unnecessary movement from your reaction you will be shocked at how fast your dog “learns”.