Hello everyone. My girlfriend and I need some serious help.
Last Saturday my girlfriend and I’s dogs got into their first fight ever. We have a male Staffy and a one year old female Italian daniff who is over 130 pounds.
The staffy has a history of getting into it with other dogs, but not our puppy. We had previously tried to rescue a female pitbull which ended up being a complete disaster. They had to be separated all the time and they got into many times. One of those times I was bit by our staffy, from redirected aggression of trying to stop them, and I had to get seven stitches in my thumb. My girlfriend and I fought over this situation, because I felt it was stupid to keep trying, but she went on with it anyway. After being separated for a while, because she wanted to continue and I wanted no part of it, that experiment ended with an hour fight between the dogs that she couldn’t stop, and then my girlfriend finally rehomed the rescue. I told her after that it was probably a bad idea to get another dog with our staffy but she didn’t listen. She got a puppy, and despite a rough start, they actually got along well and have for over a year. However, now things are getting out of hand.
Our dogs have play fought many times, but this time they got into it for real and would not separate until I unfortunately had to physically hit them to get them to stop. I tried loud noises and bribery with treats, but nothing was working.
The daniff was uninjured, but the staffy was left with bite marks by his neck and deep scratches on his head.
Things seemed to calm down after a couple of days and they seemed to be back to normal, but last night they got into it again. I tried throwing a blanket over them and using stool to try to get in between them(barrier between them), but again I was forced to use force (which breaks my heart) to stop them. Our staffy was left with more bite marks and scratches on his head, and our daniff was again uninjured.
I’m beginning to feel like this isn’t going to work and that is dangerous to keep trying. Am I overreacting, or am I right to think this? I need some advice on what to do from here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.