Two male shelties under one roof

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preston

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We jumped right into shelties feet first by getting a lovely boy (now 7 mos old) and just got another boy (9 mos old). The 7 mos old is neutered but we have to get the 9 mos old boy taken care of in the next few week. So far no major fights, just lots of running around chasing eachother and playful nipping and hair pulling. Our concern is feeding time. Our first sheltie, the younger one (who is also the larger of the two) is becoming very food aggressive and doesn't like that the other pup has food. He gobbles his down and quickly moves to get the other's. Are suggestions on how to best handle feeding time when one is aggressive? Thanks!
 
We are currently dealing with a food aggression issue between our 2 boys, Sheltie Smoke who is 1 year old and mini Aussie Apollo who is 8 months old. When he was a little puppy Apollo would steal Smoke's food and Smoke developed food aggression towards him as a result.

I just recently had a behaviorist out to our house to help me with the problem and I'll share her advice with you. We put both boys on leash for feeding time and keep them at opposite ends of our living room. They don't get their bowls until they are calm, and if at any point while they're eating they act up the bowls get taken away and not returned until calm. Also, as long as they stay calm while eating we slip treats into the bowls as a reward. We are supposed to gradually move them closer together as they improve. She also suggested that we practice with empty bowls occasionally too, just dropping treats into the empty bowl to reward calm behavior and ignoring any bad behavior.

We've been doing this for one week and we've seen good results, it still takes about 10 minutes for them to be calm and get their bowls but they are much better after that and we have had no fights after they're done eating, which was a huge issue before.

Good luck with your boys!!
 
tehluhlah said:
We are currently dealing with a food aggression issue between our 2 boys, Sheltie Smoke who is 1 year old and mini Aussie Apollo who is 8 months old. When he was a little puppy Apollo would steal Smoke's food and Smoke developed food aggression towards him as a result.

I just recently had a behaviorist out to our house to help me with the problem and I'll share her advice with you. We put both boys on leash for feeding time and keep them at opposite ends of our living room. They don't get their bowls until they are calm, and if at any point while they're eating they act up the bowls get taken away and not returned until calm. Also, as long as they stay calm while eating we slip treats into the bowls as a reward. We are supposed to gradually move them closer together as they improve. She also suggested that we practice with empty bowls occasionally too, just dropping treats into the empty bowl to reward calm behavior and ignoring any bad behavior.


We've been doing this for one week and we've seen good results, it still takes about 10 minutes for them to be calm and get their bowls but they are much better after that and we have had no fights after they're done eating, which was a huge issue before.

Good luck with your boys!!
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Interesting, I haven't had any experience with food agression and wouldn't have had any idea how to treat the issue.
 
I haven't had that issue either with 3 dogs. One girl that is on another forum that I belong to has several dogs and she just puts them in their crates to eat. Their own space and no aggression then b/c no one can get to the others food. Hope whatever you try works! Good luck!
 
Feeding in the crate and moving the crates closer together slowly would sound easier and safer to me. Good luck with the boys , I have never had this issue ever before thank God!!:eek2:
 
Well made it through dinner. We tried the keeping the separated and did better than before. Keeping the aggressive one on the lead and putting more space between them was helpful...thanks for the suggestion! I'm sure with a little more work they'll get the hang of it!
 
We have to separate everyone. Bits eats i nthe kitchen. Annie's in the living room on the floor. Dune is in the space between the living room and kitchen. Layla jumps up on a long ottoman to dine. And old Lassie eats in her sunroom. I'm running a diner here!

Why is it that the other guy's food always taste's better??? :rolleyes2:
 
I made a big mistake with my two girls. Buttons was almost a year old when we got Bows. By that time she was really a picky eater, we spoiled her way too much. So many times she'd just walk away from her bowl. Bows must have been the runt of the litter. She wolfed down her food like there was no tomorrow. When Buttons didn't eat, we just let her bowl sit. Bows had no problems eating all of her food too. Well, it didn't take long before Buttons realized that she wasn't getting anything else and so she wasn't going to take it anymore. Once the aggression began, we separated the bowls on opposite sides of the kitchen. When we moved, they went on opposite sides of the kitchen island. Buttons being alpha female was fed first. We had few problems once we separated them during feeding time, but Buttons would still snatch treats from your hand if Bows was in the general area. The one good thing to become of it, Buttons stopped being a picky eater. We no longer had to buy the most expensive soft food to get her to eat.
 
Our Boys

We have to stand guard whenever we feed the pack, otherwise, they'll try to steal each other's food.

Sparky, the 6 year old tri, seems to be the leader of the three, then Max, then Disco, the 2 year old chocolate Lab/Sharpai mix. It's a pecking order.

You'd think since Disco is the largest that he'd be more aggressive, but he's not. Other than that, they all get along perfectly.

With our dearly departed babies, we never had that problem with the food, considering we had 2 female Rotties and 2 male Shelties at the same time.
 
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