Random Vent - Dog Fighting

Forgive my potential incoherent babble. My heart is still racing and I'm still a bit shaky over recent events. But I have to write about this before I can get past it, so bear with me while I unload.

Everyone says you should never under any circumstances try to break up a dogfight. Probably because they won't hesitate to attack you in the process of attacking each other and not even realize it until later. Well, I couldn't just stand by and watch them kill each other, so I had to intervene.

M and S started fighting tonight. I'm not sure what started it but S has very bad cataracts and can't hear very well and I guess M got too close to her and next thing you know, they're at each other's throats, but mainly S was after M. I couldn't get to the blanket to cover them both so I whacked at them with my tennis shoe which was in the chair next to me. (Why it was in the chair, I have no clue, but it was a good thing that it was, because it was heavy enough to get their attention, but not too heavy to cause any permanent damage to either.) This allowed them to be separated long enough for M to get away from S. She darted under the green chair in the corner. S tried to follow but by this time I was able to get the blanket and I started shooing S towards her crate. (No one has been able to pick S up for a long time, so this is the only way to get her to go to her bed.) She was snapping and snarling at me the whole time but she finally got to the entrance and once she was halfway in, I pushed her the rest of the way in by closing the gate to her house.

That's when I noticed the blood on the floor.

I didn't recall seeing any red anywhere on S, so I was pretty sure that the blood came from M. She wouldn't let me get near her and wouldn't come to me when I called. (I guess she thought she was in trouble.) After chasing her around the room, I was finally able to corner her and I scooped her up to see what damage had been done.

Her nose now has two holes in the top of it that looks like a snake bit her. I tried blotting it with a damp towel but she wouldn't let me. So I took over to the water bowl and splashed water on her face. She wasn't happy about that but she wouldn't let me help her any other way, so I wasn't sure what else I could do. Otherwise, she seems okay, so I didn't think a trip to the emergency clinic was necessary.

With S in bed, I put the rest of them outside to potty and then found some things to block off the living room and then once they all came in, I put them in the kitchen and then with the door between the kitchen and the family room closed, I opened S's cage and let her outside. Then I went into the kitchen to calm the rest of them down. It must have been weird for them to all be in the kitchen together, since for two of them, that area was off limits as their world consisted of outside and the family room.

After a few minutes, I went back into the family room and let S inside. She put both feet on my knees (that's as far as she can reach me when she jumps up) which freaked me out a little, considering the fact that just a few short minutes ago, she was ready to bite my hand off, and was looking for her treat, of which I didn't have one for her. I went back to the loveseat and as my heart was trying to return to its normal pattern, I had one eye on the tv (CSI marathon) and the other eye on her, watching her roam around the room. She seemed confused as she was searching for the rest of her siblings and since I had moved the water bowl (so that M wouldn't have to cross in front of S's cage to get to it), she seemed disoriented. As she was wandering around aimlessly, I was watching her and it doesn't appear that she was injured in any way. Apparently M didn't fight back. S is older than M by a few months but S still has all of her teeth whereas M only has a few left. (Must have been all of those bunnies that M has eaten.) So M doesn't really have much to fight with. And S's teeth are razor sharp as every family member can attest to since each of little ones used to be picked up and put in their cages but in the past several months, S would bite anyone who so much as tried to pick her up....because of that, Mom always let Dad put S to bed seeing as he was the only one she didn't bite, but the night she bit Dad, that was the end of the picking-her-up-to-put-her-to-bed ritual.

So this is actually the second night in a row that M and S have fought. They seemed fine together this morning, so I gave them all another opportunity to get along. Bad move.

Last night when I was in the kitchen feeding the rest of the troop, I heard barking and growling coming from BB and S in the family room. I went into the family room to see what was going on and to pass out spankings and it seems that somehow BB's full food bowl got knocked over and S and BB starting fighting over who got to eat the spilled food. BB is much bigger than S, so S must have backed off, but before I had a chance to put anyone outside or to bed, M and S are fighting because I guess M was trying to get in on the extra food, too, and must have gotten too close to S. M tried running away from S and ran behind the love seat. S ran behind the love seat after her and it was weird because the whole time, S's tail was wagging. (For some reason, I thought that indicated a happy dog.) Of course they were both snarling at each other the whole time, but with them both being behind the loveseat, I couldn't get to them. Screaming my head off at them wasn't accomplishing anything, so I yanked the arm of the loveseat as hard as I could to move it and in the process, I kinda ripped the cushion off the arm rest but at least I was finally able to get to S to whack her butt with the only thing I could find at the time...and empty plastic water bottle. Yeah, I know, stupid choice, right? But it was the only thing that was nearby except for the several remote controls that were on the table and the cordless phone, but I didn't dare swat her with any of those because any of those objects could actually hurt her and I didn't want that. I just wanted them to stop fighting. I pulled the large empty plastic grape container out of the trash can and then with one hand dragging her backside towards me and the other with the grape container blocking off her mouth (from biting me as she was trying to do), I pushed the loveseat back against the wall, grabbed one of the towels on top of the houses and was able to start shooing S off to bed. And then everyone else who had a crate was put to bed for the night. The next morning, they all went outside to potty together like nothing had happened just a few hours earlier.

It should go without saying that I didn't sleep very well last night.

Well, tonight was the second chance for S and I will not be passing out a third, so as difficult as it is going to be, I will have to let the rest of them out together without S and then herd them into the kitchen to let S out by herself. So she will potty by herself, eat by herself, and I figure I'll give her a half hour in the morning and an hour at night to be out of her cage. (It may sound cruel, but if I give her anymore than half an hour in the morning, I'll have to get up at 3am and I'm not quite willing to do that.) It's really gonna suck since it will be difficult juggling them all around each time and it will be one more thing that I will need to remember to do...hopefully I won't forget tomorrow morning and let them all out at once. Or, if I do forget, hopefully they will get along again. This will also mean that I won't be able to leave them all out of the crates during the day because I certainly don't want to come home from work to find one (or more) of them dead. So do I just leave S in her crate and keep the rest of them out to freely move about the living room?

Don't know if they'll ever get along again. Only time will tell, but Mom and Dad can deal with that when they get back. I'm not taking that chance again.

I hate to say this. I hate to even think it. Because I love dogs. I really do. But...this is not the second or the third or even the tenth time that M and S have ever fought. And now that S is getting into fights with anyone who crosses her path too closely (even BG, who has to seriously be prodded before she'll get into a fight) I think that S is becoming too much of a problem for everyone else. Both canine and human alike. Maybe it would be best if S was put down ... before she hurts anyone else. It's not like she hasn't lived a full life. She is 16 which is pretty old for a dog....even a little dog. And I don't think we have the technology yet to provide contacts for dogs, so without her being able to see, I don't see how S is ever going to be able to change her disposition to get along with the rest of them.

Well, it's time now to go give everyone their last potty break of the evening before they all have to go to bed. All except for S. She's in for the night. And I'll be sleeping in the computer room tonight so I won't have to hear her shrill barks.

Am I doing the right thing by keeping her separated from everyone else? What would you do if you were in my position?

Vixy