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Someone let's multiple male dogs roam a fenced yard during the day while they are gone at work. They have gotten in multiple fights . This last time it was in a dog house they both have access to. It was a pretty bad fight. Hard to break up.


Is it the owners fault ? Is it the dogs fault, One or both ? What could the owner do next time to avoid this from happening in the future ? Why did it happen ? Thanks. I would love everyone's opinions.

Owners. Very few, multiple male dogs can be left totally unsupervised for hours without having problems. Especially with dog houses in the pen.

I 100 percent agree with kickemall! I had a call a month ago about this exact same thing only the outcome was a dead dog. My buddy just couldn't understand what could have caused it...the list is long , I told him even if they get along 99 percent of the time at some point 1 male decides the others dog house is more appealing today or someone is just grouchy for whatever reason and it escalates quickly especially in a case where there's 4 males together. Or maybe there's a female in heat a half a mile up the road and those boys catch a whiff. I use to keep 2 males to a kennel with no problems, but 1 day my female came into heat and I had my stud and one of his sons kenneled together and the almost 2yr old pup almost killed his dad in a dog house and I wasn't home just the wife and kid. Since that day the males have their own kennels. I'm no dog expert but I had beagles when I was younger and always had dogs my whole life weather they were just house dogs or hunting dogs,beagles, bird dogs, hounds, dogs like us just some times get into it with each other . Even in my dog box recently I have had a young male deciding he is becoming the alpha of the pack and getting growly with my older males when they all first get loaded into the box, I was quickly over it because I know eventually he was going to try the older males so I just threw a shock collar on and at the first growl toned him only took 2 or 3 times and its back to normal.

Thanks guys. I agree 100 %. I was hoping a certain someone would see this. Sometimes hearing it from others will change peoples outlook on things. I know I wouldn't be where I am now without the guidance of others when I didn't know any different.

Everyone here always kept their dogs in big pens together and separate kennels is kinda new. One for gyps and one for males. Mostly foxhounds and they never had a problem. Any dogs that was bad about fighting was dealt with so aggression never got passed on. One thing that I think helped was being run a minimum of 3 days a week. I’ve always watched pups and when they started eating get a small switch and stop the growling and food aggression as soon as they started it

Right on Sandy, pen manners go hand and hand with hard running and handling and correcting. The running dogs I’ve had in the past and have now are just naturally not that aggressive but if you just let them lay in the pen, tempers do get a little on edge I’ve noticed. I’ve had as many as 4 grown males penned together all their lives with no trouble. I’ve noticed the bitches are the worst and fight to hurt but that can be corrected.

I have few problems keeping numerous running walkers together. The bitches are worse than the males.
I have 2-50’ x 100’ pens, one for males, one for females.
As stated above, I handle aggressive behavior early, swiftly and harshly.
But in 50 years i have had a couple males injured from fighting to the point I couldn’t hunt them for a few days. In those instances, I saw the signs in the dog’s interactions but failed to adequately address the issue. That was my fault.

I'd say it's a bit of both - owners need to take responsibility, but dogs can be unpredictable. Maybe try separating them when you're not around? Like, create different play areas or something.