Dog Fight

How to Break Up a Dog Fight
Without Getting Hurt!

It is important for everyone that works with dogs, or owns dogs to know how to break up a dog fight without getting hurt.

I will start with a warning. Unless you have a lot of experience do not try and break up a dogfight by yourself. Never step in the middle of two loving pets and try and grab them by the collar to stop a dogfight. If you try this, the chances of you being badly bitten are extremely high. People don't understand that 2 animals in the middle of a fight are in survival drive. If they see you at all, they don't look at you as their loving owner. When you charge in and grab them they either react out of a fight reflex and bite, or they see you as another aggressor. When they are in fight or flight they will bite you. You can take that to the bank.

Here is what happened at one kennel A wife of a friend came to the kennel with her daughter. She told my secretaries that I had said it was OK to go in my whelping rooms to show her little girl our puppies. I had never told her this. Anyway, that does not matter. When she was finished and left, she did not latch one of the kennel gates properly. Later, one of my kennel staff let another bitch outside. The first bitch jumped against her poorly latched kennel gate, and it came open. She ran outside and started a terrible dogfight. I had not told this young kennel person how to break up a dogfight in progress. He ran in and tried to grab both dog collars. He was very badly bitten in the forearm and hand before I could get on scene and brake up the fight the correct way.

For your information. The safest way to break up a dogfight requires 2 people. Each person grabs the back feet of one of the dogs. The dog is picked up like a wheelbarrow. With the legs up, both dogs are then pulled apart. Once they break apart, it is critical that the people do not release the dogs or the fight will begin again. They need to start to turning in a circle, or slowly swinging the dogs in a circle while they back away from the other dog. This stops the dog from curling and coming back and biting the person holding their legs.

By circling the dog, the dog has to sidestep with its front feet or it will fall on its chin. As long as you slowly continue to back and circle, the dog cannot do any damage to you. To insure that the fight will not begin all over again when you release the dogs, one of the dogs needs to be dragged into an enclosure (i.e. a kennel, the garage, another room) before the dog is released. If they do not do this, the dogs will often charge back and start fighting again.

Dogfights are a very dangerous thing to try and break up alone. You should never rush in and try and grab the dogs to pull them apart. They are in high "fight drive" and are not thinking clearly when fighting. If someone grabs them they will bite without even thinking about who or what they are biting. This is how your loving pet can bite the living crap out of you in about a second and a half. In reality it probably doesn't even know its you that it's biting. I compare it to a bar fight. If a person comes up behind 2 guys fighting and just reaches out and grabs the shoulder of one of the combatants most of the time the fighter is going to turn and throw a punch without even looking at who or what he is hitting. This is because his adrenaline in pumping and he s in 'fight drive.’

The worst case scenario is that you are alone when a serious fight breaks out.

There are a couple things that you must keep in mind:

Keep your cool you have a job to do
Do not waste time screaming at the dogs. It hardly ever works.
Your goal is still the same; you must break up the fight without getting hurt.
Go get a leash (allow the fight to continue while you do this).
Dogs are almost always locked onto one another. Walk up and loop the leash around the back loin of the dog by either threading the leash through the handle or use the clip. I prefer the thread method.
Now slowly back away and drag the dog to a fence or to an object that you can tie the leash to. By doing this, you effectively create an anchor for one of the dogs.
Then walk around and grab the back legs of the second dog and drag it away from the dog that is tied up. Remember to turn and circle as they release.
Drag the dog into a dog pen or another room before you release the back legs.
Go back and take the dog off the fence and put him or her into a dog kennel.
Sit down and have a stiff drink (or two).
People talk about using cattle prods or shock collars to break up 2 pets that fight. I can tell you that many times this is not going to work. The electric cattle prod or electric collar will only put the dogs into higher fight drive. When they are shocked they will turn and bite the prod, or when they are shocked they will think the other dog is causing the pain and they will fight harder. An electric collar is best used in conditioning training, but not during an actual dogfight.

I had a friend tell me that using a stun gun works. Not to actually shock the dog, but just to hold it in your hand and allow it to snap. The sound of the electrical snap is supposed to cause the dogs to stop fighting. I will muzzle 2 of my dogs and let them go at it to see if this works. I will be surprised if it works on 2 really strong dogs going after each other.

A point I would like to make is that if you see two dogs out there squaring off through body posturing (i.e. one dog with stiff legs and tail straight up in the air putting his head over the shoulders of the other to show dominance) do not run out there screaming "NO NO NO!!!!" Most of the time this is going to trigger the fight. A lot of times dogs will posture and one will give in and back away. They settle their dominance issue without a battle. I NEVER, NEVER, NEVER recommend testing this situation. It's not worth the fight that erupts if you are wrong. But I can tell you of a couple of situations at my kennel where I went outside and 2 males were loose that I would have thought would fight to the death. Obviously they determined that today is not the day to argue. I also know that had I gone out screaming before they settled it themselves there would have been a nasty fight.

Butch Crabtree got bit by his own dogs in the kitchen of his house, because he did not do things correctly.

If you have 2 dogs that you are trying to get to live together it’s best to make them wear muzzles all the time. Try the jafco muzzles I sell. They are cheap and effective for this work. With muzzles on you can safely step in and really get after the dogs. Its important to make sure the muzzles are properly fit and on securely. It's also a good idea to have the dogs wear 18-inch draglines. When one of the dogs even acts like it is going to challenge the other dog you need to get after it. If the dog shows any sign of aggression towards you, take it to the ground and ALPHA ROLE it.

**** DO NOT EVER TRY AND ALPHA ROLE A DOG WITHOUT A MUZZLE ON!!!!!!

Remember that females usually fight with females and males usually fight with males. It's seldom that a male and female will fight. When a male fights with a female it usually a very dominant male who is displaying his dominance over the female and she wants nothing to do with it. I have had to gas one of my stud dogs twice when he got into it with a female who did not want anything to do with him. This usually is going to happen with a dominant male who is very self confident, and thinks that he is the pack leader. You will also have males with strong sex drive go after a bitch that is not receptive to them.

The bottom line on dogfights is that unless you are trained it is best to never step into the middle of them. In the worst case, let them fight. It may resulted in death or sever injury to one of the dogs, but it's not worth the damage it could cause to you if you make a mistake trying to end the fight.

A last word of warning. If your or someone you are with gets bitten and has to go to the emergency room, the most common treatment is to leave the dog bite wounds open so they can drain. They normally should not be stitched. The only time most doctors will stitch up a dog bite is if it's on the face. By closing the wound there is a much higher chance of infection. If the doctor that you see wants to stitch normal puncture wounds, ask for a second opinion. Because of my experience with police dogs I knew better than to allow my hospitals physicians assistant to stitch my employee. I voiced my concern but she insisted on stitching. I should have asked for a doctor's opinion. The wounds got infected and we had him back in the emergency room (at a different hospital) 2 days later. They took the stitches out, inserted packing and put him on "IV's " with antibiotics.

A final note to this article. I have received a great many emails about dog fighting. Many were well meant with ideas of how to use a hose and squirt water on the dog etc, etc, etc. While I appreciate these thought, the methods are simply not going to work on very hard, very tough working dog.

I get a number of emails on dog fights. This is more of a common problem than one would think. You can read some of these below and there is a Q&A section on my web site about dog fights.

One email deserves mention - a man recently wrote this:

I write to tell you my "fun" method of separation when the fight is at home. A CO2 fire extinguisher. They are good to have around anyway. A combination of sound and the cold shot alone would be enough to break up the fight but when you add the effects of oxygen depravation, the results are "breathtaking". Give it a shot.

A dog fight is never pleasant, but I will have to admit to some small sense of satisfaction in letting them have it. Totally harmless when it was tried on me. And it worked every time on them. I bet you add it to your article when you see the results !

Source http://leerburg.com/dogfight.htm

NOTE: Please remember a dog fight should be separated only by an experienced person. This text provides suggestions on we are not responsible for any consequences if you try it at home. Thank you

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