I have 4 dogs
4 year old female scottie
2 year old welsh terrier bitch (both neutered)
a scottie male ( 1 year old)
and a fairly new welsh terrier male 7 months old

Both males are not castrated as yet (I am due to book the new welsh dog in for castration in the next 2 weeks)

the problem is, that the male welsh terrier often picks on the male scottie, who is generally affable but NEVER backs down. we have had three or four nasty bloody fights so far, sometimes over food (they never get fed together) but recently it just happened when the male was excitied

any ideas anyone????????

get his nuts off quick.
obviously its just a dominance and pack order issue(especially if its males imho) so it could escalate or it could stop.
if one of them doesn't back down it probably will get worse,which i'm sure you've already thought of.

I think it's probable that your young welsh terrier has just hit puberty and now believes (as all adolescent male animals seem to, human or otherwise) that they own the world and that nobody can push them around.

I'd also recommend castration as soon as humanly possible- the risk of it all getting worse with every confrontation is just too high.

The alternative to that is to accept him as your top dog and do everything to urge your other dogs to recognise him as that too, but there are potential risks and costs with that course too. Any dog who believes that they make the decisions in your house has the potential to try to overrule you on all sorts of things- and the potential outcome of that just doesn't bear thinking about.

Good advice so far, castration is the way forward, but dont expect a miracle cure, as it takes a few months for the tostesterone to supress.

You do need to some work on the pecking order aswell as Medusa has said. I would remove all toys and treats so as to avoid any spats until the problem is sorted.

Ditto castration - these are all feisty terrier breeds so I can understand the not backing down thing.

You've got a very volatile mix of dogs there, whether neutered or not! Scottie's are very feisty, whatever sex and Welshies particularly so. Having them castrated really doesn't make any difference. They still have the "memory" present and in the case of your two, the memory will be of fighting, probably over territorial issues. That may take a very long time to get over, if ever.

Sorry if that seems negative but it is very difficult to keep a number of dogs with their natural instinct and hope that they will live together peacably. It's one of the scariest and most upsetting things, in my experience, when dogs start to fight.

Don't try to separate them by pulling at their mouth because their jaws lock on and you're highly likely to get bitten. If there is another person around, each grab a dog by its back legs and try to separate them that way. They get all their strength and traction from their back legs. All you can hope to do is lift them off the ground and gradually each of you move back, so that one of the dogs will eventually loosen its grip.

Both Scotties and Welshies have very powerful, punishing jaws. They were also bred to kill and they are such courageous little dogs that neither of them has a reverse gear! I'm afraid that it is extremely rare for two such feisty, bossy males to live together without frequent fights ensuing. One male can live happily with any amount of females, in my (vast)experience but there really isn't room for two males in one territory. Think what would happen in the wild, which is how I often look at things, from the dogs' perspective. They would either fight to the death, or the submissive one would be driven away.

I'm very experienced in owning terrier breeds so understand your predicament. The kindest thing, for the dogs' sake, in my opinion, would be to re-home one of the male dogs otherwise I'm afraid that sadly, this situation is going to happen time and time again.

Good luck with it! Perhaps a few tears now will prevent an awful lot of heartache some time in the future.

no expert in teriers im afraid, but well-versed in pack management, owning 10 dogs of the same breed and also at the moment, a lodging rescue whos been with us for 3 months. Its very rare for us to have any sort of fight here, and hierarchy is normally reinforced by one dog giving another the 'look'. We have 2 males, ones an adult, the other a youngster, and hierarchy is established and the two are good friends. It tends to be the bitches who have more status issues in our breed, the boys are very laid back.

the observations i would make are that you have two young males, going through adolesence, with raging hormones and vying for alpha male position (particularly the younger one). Many males (including ours) go though this between the ages of about 6-18 months. Neutering MAY help (certainly the younger one, preferably both), though as already pointed out, it will take upto 3 months for the male hormones to subside.

also make sure YOU are at the top of the pack. A stern 'NO!' almost always works as discapline here, and all 10 of our dogs are fed, side by side, in the same place. stealing of another dogs food is not allowed.
If you are determined to keep your boys, you could enlist the help of a behaviourist. Look up RIVOS, in Oxspring. Hes a chap we have had the help of with a rescue recently.

hi have you tried to stop them getting to the excited as when dogs get excited to them its like a sign off instabilaty which can start fights also give the the sound distraction method a try aswell ..get a small pop bottle (empty)& put some small stones in it then when they look as if they are going to fight shake it &shout no . doesn`t work for all dogs but has for my eight...thankfully.hope this helps