The WolfDog Howl

The following question and request for advice is from one of my customers. I am answering the question here on the blog because I get this same question a lot and I do not wish to keep answering the same questions over and over.

I respectfully ask all of you to please ask questions on the blog and not email me directly as my email box is constantly overflowing.

My customer asked the following:

"Was wondering if you could help me. I have a pair of sister wolf dogs. They have been a wonderful addition to my family. They are 5 years old. Lately they have been fighting a lot. There is a new addition to they family, one of their puppies (female) that me and my husband decided to keep. But the mom and the puppy are fighting a lot with the other female. She now had extensive damage to both ears and back of neck. We don’t want to get rid of any of our wonderful dogs. Do you think that if we got all of them spayed that they would stop with the instinct of "weed out the week"?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated."

My answer:

You have accidentally stumbled upon an anomaly that not only affects wolf dogs, but all dogs in general. And, that is the nature of females!

Female wolf dogs (almost all female dogs) DO NOT like other female dogs around in their territory. The general rules are: two males are ok. A male and female are ok, but two females are NOT ok.

The only exception to this is littermates (sisters). Sisters (or female littermates) will tolerate each other to a certain extent. They will still fight amongst themselves on a regular basis, however they will tolerate being around each other because they were born that way. Any other female that enters into their area will NOT be tolerated and they will fight constantly until one of them is gone.

Thus, the two sisters can live with each other, but the new female pup of one sister will not be tolerated by the other sister. Therefore, you have several choices:

 You can keep one sister and her new female pup, however the mother will soon grow increasingly intolerant of her pup as she matures.

 You can keep the two sisters and give-up the pup.

 You can keep the two sisters and maybe a male pup instead of a female pup.

 You can separate all the animals.

However, you CAN NOT keep the female pup of one sister with the other sister.

Having the animals spayed will not change their behavior towards other female canines. Usually, having animals spayed just diminishes them from leaving their respective territory and cuts down on aggression in general as they age.

I'm sorry this has happened to you, but again that is the general nature of female canines. Naturally, there are always exceptions, but these are rare, and usually there are other strange circumstances involved.