I am at a complete loss on this. We’ve been working pretty hard at reining in the dogs (pictured from the other day), making it clear that we are the alphas, the pack leaders and keeping them under control.
And yet, tonight, while Annie and her sister were in the office, the dogs went at it. I’m not clear on the details, but it appears that Sophie went for a ball and Rosie reacted, but that may not matter. What matters is that we broke the fight up quickly, but we have not been able to de-escalate the bad energy and it is going on two hours.
Sophie is acting scared and defensive; Rosie is being the aggressor.
The night started well. Both of them listened when my brother and sister-in-law were over with the kids and they played with the kids. But maybe there was too much excitement for them, maybe we should have done something to help calm them more when Mark and Ana left. I just don’t know.
It was probably less than 30 minutes after they left that the dogs went at it.
We broke them up, separated them and slowly brought them back together. But Sophie remains in defensive mode and Rosie went to bite and was barking. It is scary and both of us are shaken.
Annie has Sophie in the bedroom and I’m in the living room with Rose. We have two gates separating them and we’ll see if a night apart calms things. Both of us are terrified that something broke tonight that we won’t be able to fix, that we may have to — well, I don’t even want to think it at this point.
I just want them to get along.
Rosie is starting to fall asleep on the chair and I’m going to lie down on the couch. I hope that both of us get some sleep tonight, but I just don’t know if that’s possible.
We’re both worried about leaving them alone tomorrow and when we go to work on Monday.
I’ve Tweeted the trainer, and I think Annie’s checked in via Facebook. I’m hoping to hear from her early tomorrow and we’ll just take things one moment at a time.
I don’t know what else to do.
Hank Kalet 