# How to deal with adolescent male fights?



## orestis (Aug 26, 2013)

Hi everyone! 

It seems that Mucho is hitting puberty quite aggressively, and he is showing some "aggression" when meeting or seeing other male dogs.

(When meeting female dogs, we let him get close and let the bitch deal with him - we usually have to educate the other owners to let their female teach him a lesson)

I know that in this phase Mucho will have tendencies to bark, lunge and try to get on top of other male dogs, and usually they will reciprocate.

Usually I try to avoid the situation, but sometimes it's unavoidable. I'm not sure how to deal with it when it happens. What I try to do now is to reward him when he's nice and relaxed, and discipline him when is loud and obnoxious. I'm not sure how well I cope with the situation though. 

Just a note, this happened a lot during a three day trip we took where there were a lot of other small dogs that were also "in your face" so it wasn't easy to find many situations where I could reward him. I now need to seek gentle and calm adult dogs where his barking will not be tolerated.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

I'm having trouble figuring out why your young male dog is getting himself in so much trouble with other dogs. I believe in orchestrating positive social interactions for dogs as often as possible, and protecting them from negative interactions with other dogs. This is especially true with adolescents. This isn't a situation for "discipline", it's a situation where education is needed. If you can't do this yourself, I strongly suggest that you find a good positive trainer to help you so that he doesn't become even more reactive toward other dogs as he matures. Little dogs who lunge at other dogs are asking for a larger dog to "finish" the fight. And it won't work out well for the little dog.


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## davetgabby (Dec 29, 2007)

I have to echo Karen's thoughts. You need to stop bringing him up to ANY dog as your pup is not coping well with that. Do not allow other dogs to be so pushed by their dog that they tell their dog off! You really need some help on the ground with this as I don't know that you have an understanding of the issues. Your dog may be reactive to all dogs or the dog may be particularly having a problem with males as part of adolescent testosterone based behaviour. Keep your dog at an established comfortable distance from other dogs and look at working on a program of desensitisation and counterconditioning. This will take help from a suitably qualified professional.


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## orestis (Aug 26, 2013)

Thanks for your responses. I believe that one cause might just the sheer amount of barking we receive wherever we pass. It is an unfortunate behavior of dog owners here, they get any dog for "guard duty" and relegate him to a front yard, balcony or roof top. This means that in our daily walk we rouse up a lot of crazy barking from a lot of poor crazed dogs.

Mucho so far has been ignoring those but sometimes I can see he is startled. I usually just try to keep cool and move on. There have been occasions also where a larger dog has tried to attack him (unprovoked) so I believe Mucho is now trying to actively keep those away.

I'll keep trying to avoid unknown dogs and see if professional help would help (we did a bit of socialization but I don't think it had much of an effect).


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