We've had lots of fights. They are less frequent than they once were, but it still happens. Pack fights are the worst. Two or three dogs going at it isn't nearly as bad as 12 or 15 of them in the same fight! Dang near lost Pacer when he ended up on the bottom of pack fight in May 2004.

I think you handled it pretty well. Staying calm is very important. If you start freaking out, yelling ect, you've become part of the fight as far as the dogs are concerned. The odds of you getting injured go way up at that point. I don't intervene at all if it's just posturing. Muskwa and Founder currently have a little debate going about who is the alpha. Muskwa is, but he's aging. Founder will be the boss dog someday, but Muskwa isn't ready to give up yet. They don't actually fight, but there's lots of trash talking going on. I ignore that stuff. They'll settle that on their own.

I know it's not an option for you, but I keep my females seperated, except for the mellow old girls. Greatly reduced the number of conflicts. Girls tend to fight differently and intentionally do much more damage than males. Kayleigh would quite happily kill another female dog. (She'll take a round out of a male too, but she has issues!) One of the worst fights we've ever had to break up was Kayleigh and her littermate. Seperating two, 110 pound ticked off female wolf-hybrids was not fun! Kayleigh had massive injuries after that fight. Summit had gone for her throat, if she had ripped much more, Kayleigh would have died. Males generally fight til one of them submits and that's the end of it. Males tend not to hold grudges. Females have long memories! As Stuart says, there's a reason the word bitch has taken on such negative connotations!

If I can see it coming, I try to get them apart. If they haven't gone into full fight mode yet, a loud noise will sometimes distract them. I keep a marine air horn by the door. A blast from that will sometimes get their attention long enough for me to intervene. I've also banged shovels on doghouses, hit metal dishes on trees. Anything that might distract them. If you have enough water pressure, a blast of water from a garden hose sometimes works too.

If we are both home and it's a relatively small fight, (2-3 dogs), we each grab a dog under their back legs and lift straight up. Do not grab the tail, unless it's a life & death situation. You can injure the dog by grabbing their tails. Usually once you lift up, the dog will look back to see what the heck is happening and you can pull them apart. Works best with two people.

Fighting is unacceptable in my pack. When it happens, every dog involved gets punished. I don't give a hoot who started it. Every participant gets in trouble. Punishment around my house is getting seperated from the pack. Combantants go on chains for a couple hours or get put into small pens alone. Nothing a husky hates more than being alone. They get allowed back into their pack slowly, a couple dogs at a time. The instigator gets reintegrated last. Nothing positive comes to them from a fight. A successful fight(ie the dog got what it wanted), means another fight is going to happen.

I hope neither of your girls was injured and they are buddies again soon!