New Aussie In The House

by Sarah
(Illinois)

A few months ago, my boyfriend and I rescued an Australian Shepherd. We had one Australian Shepherd before adopting this new one. We rescued the new Aussie from a local rescue group after meeting with the foster family and doing a meet and greet with the foster family. Both my dogs are around two years of age and are females (spayed). I know that when you bring a new dog into the family, you should try to find a dog that is as much as an opposite as the original dog, but that's just not the way things worked out for us.

Things were going great for about two weeks, and then they began fighting. We began working with them and the fighting ended. However, over the past week, the fighting has begun once again. We have been able to determine that our original dog is starting the fights the majority of the time. Most of the time, they fight when one is getting more attention than the other. They do not fight when they are being fed or when one has a toy the other one wants. Truthfully, as much as we can tell, they fight when they are jealous of attention.

We are trying as much as we can to prevent them from fighting (squirt bottle, yelling to startle them, even a shock collar). We are at our wits' ends trying to make this pack work. However, I would like some advice on what else we can try to make this work, or when to give up and return our second Aussie to the organization we rescued her from.

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