Cane Corso Aggression

[ceil01]

I am new to the forum. I have a four dog home. A female belgian Malinois,Cleopatra, who runs the house. A female Fila, Venus, who is four. And a male Cane Corso, Valentino, who is the baby at 14 months. A few months ago, we inherited a male coonhound, Spartacus. They mostly get along fine, but lately the two males have at strange times, been going after each other. Sometimes it is over affection from us. We have tried to make changes in the house. We have started kicking everyone off the furniture. No one gets on a sofa or bed now (at least while we are there). They all have to sit and wait for food, to go out. They are basically all well behaved. Except for incidents when Valentino goes after Spartacus. Never any bloodshed. I can actually grap Valentino's collar , and walk away with him, without a problem. Other times, they are great together, sleep side by side, play nice. There is no real aggression around food or toys. For whatever reason, Valeninto wants to be the BMOC. I am not sure what to do about the situation, beyond putting muzzles on the boys when I am not there.

 

[DennasMom]

Welcome to the forum!
Hopefully someone here will be able to help.

Does it only happen when you're there?
Any identifiable triggers? A toy, a location, a gesture or a 'look'?

What happens if you just get up and walk out of the room when a scuffle starts?
That stopped some of ours... the instigator suddenly felt unprotected if I wasn't there to break things up for him when he started losing... which he pretty much always did... and, if he was fighting over my attentions... it was pointless if I wasn't there. I don't think they ever had a fight when home alone together (not a bloody one, in any case, and it was all over before we got home).

That there's no bloodshed, and you can break it up easy is a good thing... seems to be more dominance play then all-out aggression.
Can you stop the scuffles with just voice commands? Send Valentino to his 'rug' or 'place' - and similar for Spartacus?

What do the other two dogs do when the boys get into it?

 

[jersey girl]

Are the males intact?

 

[Hector]

I have been going through a similar situation like yours. My 15 month old fila suddenly showing aggression towards the 4 yr old belgian shepherd mix. Everything had been fine till then. They enjoyed wrestling each other until the fila decided to be an ass. Ever since he decided to be the top ass of the house, the shepherd really lost interest in playing with him. Both are male and the shepherd is neutered and the fila is not. I banned everyone from the couch because the fila started guarding it towards the shepherd and at one instance he growled at my bf when he approached and sat on the couch (this happened when I was not home). He also started to guard me and doorway space from the shepherd and then started guarding the bed. Other times they are fine and get along with no problems. They don't guard over toys or food etc. I have also noticed these occurrences happen more often when I am around. What I did was crate and rotate and it really seemed to calm things down. I would crate one dog for 1-2 hours at a time a day. What I also found that helped was telling Hector to knock it off when I saw he was thinking to start shit with Buddy by staring him down from where he was sitting or getting growly at him from a distance because Bud was on the good bed. I just yell at him to "go lay down" and he goes and lays down by Buddy on the "not so good bed" lol. Buddy is not all innocent either and tries to steal food from him or he'll walk by and stare him straight in the face while Hector is laying down. Once you start to observe every little interaction and stop it before anything escalates, it really helps everyone snap out of it and reduces the # of occurrences.