Dog Wars

Over the years, writing this column, there have been some short ones, but the one today will be the shortest I’ve done.  It deals with our two Shepherd dogs – Choo, the German Shepherd/ Doberman mix and Jet, the black Belgian Shepherd, the former with us for 10 years and the latter for 4, who have lived together amicably for most of that time, but in recent months have had some very minor clashes.

This week, the minor escalated into major when the two of them ended up involved in a major clash on our verandah downstairs.  Throwing water on them, as my vet friend Steve Surujbally would later tell me, was a waste of time, and the altercation only ended when I grabbed Jet by the back of her neck and dragged her across the floor and out the back door into the yard.  It didn’t end there.  Many hours later, after Annette came home, the two dogs were on the upstairs verandah, and while I saw the confrontation coming and tried to intervene, they were instantly at each other in a do or die battle.  I’m writing to emphasise not to do what I did next, which is to try and separate two warring dogs.  Logically, I should have known not to do that, but for two animals who are part of your family, and dearly loved, instinct can literally take over from logic, as it did for me and Annette in this case.  We were both injured, her only minimally, but in my case I was bitten on the back of both hands, and along my right arm.  Adrenalin was obviously operating full time because I felt no bite whatsoever; only the blood flowing from my right hand in particular told me what had happened. 

              While Annette’s injuries were minor, I ended up on a trip to Balwant Singh, where they gave me a tetanus shot, along with antibiotics and medication for pain. The hospital treatment was superb throughout and while there was some pain, it did not reach the level I assumed would come from a dog bite, and in fact I was able to come back home and sleep through the night, from 10pm to daybreak…I had been anticipating a long, restless night.  I’m writing this today with small bandages on both hands and very little physical pain, but the emotional impact has been huge.  I keep hearing the noise coming from the two dogs who caused only minor damage to each other but quite a bit to me who had been impulsively using my hands to separate them.

I emphasise for any dog owners reading this: when two dogs are fighting, leave them be.  It would seem there is no need to give such advice, but the attempt to fix is an automatic response in a panic situation, where reason and consideration are out the window. These dogs, both neutered, have been living peacefully, even joyfully, with each other and with us over the past 10 years and these clashes have shown up only in recent weeks.  It is clearly at the point where we have to have them in separate areas, and I am writing this to advise persons owning more than one dog to monitor their behaviour carefully, so that at the first sign of conflict between the dominant ones, take it seriously and have them in separate areas, or separate kennels, day or night. Something has changed in their behaviour that it is seriously amiss. The trauma of what my wife and I went through last night, with two animals who have been a fixture in our lives for many years, is like a pall over us today, and I write this with the hope that other pet owners will find in our experience a lesson to heed. It should be obvious but it clearly bears repeating. The perspective is that they are our dogs. There is love operating, day and night, on both sides. They would never injure us in any way. I’m here to tell you today: that is not how it goes. Instincts, on both sides, prevail.