Do You Have Lots Of Girl Dogs?

[Perry's Mum]

I have two - Perry who is 11 and Friskie who is 13. I have had Perry since she was 13 months and I got Friskie last August after her owner died. Perry is the boss and she is not happy to have Friskie around but in reality just ignores her and sometimes tries to get her into trouble. Friskie is a little softie and is very cautious with Perry and stays out of her way. If I have to go out and leave them alone then one is crated.

[dancinbcs]

I think it depends honestly, I have 5 girls in my house,all dominant bossy types and never had any kind of problem whatsoever. With Multiple males however I have experienced nothing BUT problems. IF I ever own a male dog again I will never do more then 1, females though? I'd be happy with nothing but lol

Its worth adding that I HAVE had issues with hormonal bitches, getting nasty when close to season, but outside of that my females are all good friends. My males OTH barely tolerate each other and for years were crate and rotate and they sometimes cause issues between the females who are very tolerant otherwise. Heck Gem is my "bitchiest" female and she will always do the least she can get away with, ie, when one of my males attacked her she didn't even use her teeth to defend herself, she just rolled over and kicked him till I could get him off her..then she walked away calmly...and then offered a play bow...

I would not tolerate a male that would attack a bitch. Totally unacceptable behaviour to me. I hope your male that did that was not bred with.

[indigirl]

I had 4 larger breed dogs, 2 makes (boxer and bullmastiff cross) and 2 bitches ( golden retriever and kelpie cross). For 5 years my two girls were the best of friends. Then one day the kelpie cross attacked the golden and the fight was of deadly intent. had enormous trouble separating them and ended up tossing the kelpie x girl over a fence to save her. It took weeks for the kelpie girl to recover from her injuries.

For 18 months I kept then apart using crates and toddlers gates. I eventually started taking them out for a run together and one day the kelpie again attacked the golden. I was unable to separate them and it was only when they saw my starting to drive away they stopped. Kelpie was badly injured and I put her to sleep as I couldn't risk another fight.

Was a terrifying and heartbreaking experience. I am always very careful with my bitches now. I have my backyard fenced into different yards and I generally put the bitches in different yards.

I thought because my girls were besties for 5 yrs I would never have a problem with them. How wrong I was!

[Remarkabull]

I only have 2 bitches ATM, 8yr old JRT (desexed) and a 2yr old Bulldog (entire).

My JRT has always been the boss dog, until Simi matured and refuses to accept Flashs bossy ways. For the most part they live peacefully but I do separate them when we are not home and they have had a couple of spats. The biggest issue is that Flash won't back down despite the obvious size/weight difference. So far I've been able to stop them with a yell but have to grab one of them to stop Flash from going back in for round 2.

I plan on getting another bitch in a year or 2 so will have to be careful. Simi is fine as long as she isn't challenged but Flash likes to make a lot of noise and let them know immediately that she is queen.

The 2 boys just do as they're told and try to avoid the girls when they're in a 'mood'. My entire male Bulldog is a big softy and has no problems with other entire males.

[Bjelkier]

I have three bitches and no issues so far.

In the past I have been forced to re-home one girl from totally different lines to my current girls and she had issues with every other bitch she met. Both her mother and grandmother have the same temperament so I wasn't too surprised when my girl started having a go at others.

[espinay2]

Just wanted to thank everyone for their thoughts and advice. I feel like when this litter is actually on the ground I'll now be in a better position to assess the best way to go about things. There are ways we could separate if necessary here, we can fence the 'sideway' off on either side of the house to create two smaller runs and could even put some fencing mesh around the patio and use that area to separate when we aren't home so there are options if it became necessary. When we had Zena the dane X rescue here not long ago we had to keep everyone separate and it was stressful as it was a case of leashing dogs to move them past each other and swapping indoors to outdoors regularly so everyone got a run. But I think that was more to do with my girls finding Zena's size(and she was in the midst of a phantom pregnancy so was a bit weird) very overwhelming moreso than her being a bitch.

You will find that being well set up to handle multiple dogs can definitely greatly reduce stress for both you and for the dogs. I don't always need all my different 'areas', but they are there when I do, and it does make life so much less stressful, which is healthier for both the dogs and for us humans (stress can cause many health problems for dogs just as it can for humans). Well worth the investment for anyone planning on multiples.

[kelpiecuddles]

Yes, I'm glad I started this thread because it made me sit down and think, IF things weren't going how I hoped, how would I sort it out. I'm now feeling quite confident in how I would divide up the dogs if needed which is probably not a bad thing anyway when adding a new puppy regardless of it's sex. :)

[cali]

I think it depends honestly, I have 5 girls in my house,all dominant bossy types and never had any kind of problem whatsoever. With Multiple males however I have experienced nothing BUT problems. IF I ever own a male dog again I will never do more then 1, females though? I'd be happy with nothing but lol

Its worth adding that I HAVE had issues with hormonal bitches, getting nasty when close to season, but outside of that my females are all good friends. My males OTH barely tolerate each other and for years were crate and rotate and they sometimes cause issues between the females who are very tolerant otherwise. Heck Gem is my "bitchiest" female and she will always do the least she can get away with, ie, when one of my males attacked her she didn't even use her teeth to defend herself, she just rolled over and kicked him till I could get him off her..then she walked away calmly...and then offered a play bow...

I would not tolerate a male that would attack a bitch. Totally unacceptable behaviour to me. I hope your male that did that was not bred with.

Oh heck no, he was promptly desexed after I got him, however he was 4 when I got him, so prior to that its entirely possible unfortunately

[Amax-1]

Other than for breeding, I wouldn't have female dogs at all in a multi dog household and prefer males albeit this experience is mainly with GSD's, but males are easier to handle, learn and accept pack dynamics more easily and don't hold grudges in the even of a scrap that bitches tend to. In a scrap, males tend to apply enough pressure to prove a point and if they can do it with slobber and noise they will over mounting a savage attack. The worse dog fights I have seen in GSD's were always two bitches and one nasty one was a bitch attack on a desexed male wasn't pretty either.

[Vickie]

We have 10 yo desexed BC bitch, 6 yo desexed terrier bitch, 2 x 3 yo entire BC bitches, 6month entire BC dog.

Never had a fight. If either of my young bitches is away for a few days, there is some posturing when they return, but it's minimal & I interrupt it.

Have run 5 bitches together with no issues. Feed all together, can throw chicken carcasses on ground with no issues. I don't really have one standout dominant bitch. I always take the time when I add a new dog to interfere if I need to, but mostly I don't need to. I would never add a new dog if the existing dogs did not live in harmony.