Can someone explain? Male vs. Female?

[Glacier]

I have much more trouble with female-female pairings than male-male pairs. The girls, when they fight, fight to kill each other. They are not going for dominance, resources ect. They are trying to hurt each other and left to battle it out, one of them will end up at the very least seriously injured. The worst fight I"ve ever had to break up was two female mal-mix littermates. I've stopped 15 dog pack fights with less trouble than those two girls and I still ended up with a 1000 dollar vet bill.

The females never forget or forgive either. They will hold a grudge for the rest of their lives. I keep my girls apart all the time when unsupervised, except the last two senior girls. Sleet hardly moves anymore unless she has to and Pingo is much more interested in keeping track of her tennis balls than she is in fighting!

The males will fight, but they rarely do serious damage to each other. Injuries in the male fights occur when a third dog jumps in or it turns into a pack fight. Pack fights are a whole different league of aggression! They generally stop when the other dog submits. I've watched two of my boys have what looked and sounded like a fight to the death. Until Founder gave in, admitted Muskwa is still the boss of him and they both walked away covered in saliva but completely uninjured. They were playing 5 minutes later. I've never had a male I couldn't work back into the pack after a simple one-to-one fight. They move on and can usually learn to tolerate each other, even if they aren't BFF's.

My mother always said she greatly prefered the way my brothers fought over the way my sister and I did....I get that now!

[Lori Jordan]

It really is bizarre how things work out my SIL,Has 3 males,One is a Aussie,a black lab and a Bermese/Border Collie/Sheltie mix,And they all get along fine,And then look at my gang Lacy and Molly have never seen eye to eye,There managed now,But i have had to take Lacy into the vet on two different ocaisions for stiches.

Personally I like males better,My Storm and along with my SIL dogs are sooo Different then females.Please do not take this the wrong way,Now it could all be based on the breeds that i have,But i find females more tempermental and have attitude,My husband is the opposite he would prefer females(Go Figure)lol.

Lacy is funny,she is ok with other animals,Until they smell her rear end,And she is done for,I had her down at the family farm,They now have a border collie/Husky mix Sammi..A male...He is so friendly and just want to play,He took a sniff at Lacy's backside and the teeth came out,Now just picture this,Sammi was devasted that Lacy would not play with him,And Lacy was ready to take a round out of him.

Molly and Bella Run together and play like there is no tomorrow..I think its more of a trick question,If your going to adopt,once you have chosen which Pup best suits you and your lifestyle,Take Hank and the pup for a meeting,I think Shelters allow you to do so.

I think in all dog fighting it comes down to the dog that wants to be alpha..My Maggy could not be botherd with conflict...Molly well she stands her ground,I always say to Lacy she is a true red head,Firey temper lol.

Good luck in your search i hope it all works out for you!

[Queen of Poop]

Just doing reading on dominance, urinating, etc. What I got out of it is that have a male/female relationship. But ensure the female is smaller than the male. Just what I read, passing it along.

From my experience: I had a 4 year old female mixed breed, introduced another 1 year old female, smaller in size. They bonded and got along great.

[k9krazee]

When Shadow was alive Mini would always fight with her. Female/female fights ARE the worst. And every fight had some sort of injury (usually on poor Shadow!)

Then we've had male/male fights with Micki and Jack, but they're never serious and if we clap our hands or yell "Hey!" they stop.

Come to think of it, I've never had a male/female fight at the house and right now we have 2 females and 2 males.

[Seravieve]

This is interesting to read.. Just in general.. but also because when Zeke and Eli got into it, it was pretty bad. Zeke always started it. They'd be in the living room or on the back patio and bam! Eli has little scars all over from it. Just little tooth marks, that wont grow hair back, except for two on his face, which grew white hairs instead of brown/black. Zeke drew blood every time he went after Eli. Of course, after a while it stopped and they co-existed, but it wasn't fun in the beginning.

[Lori Jordan]

This is interesting to read.. Just in general.. but also because when Zeke and Eli got into it, it was pretty bad. Zeke always started it. They'd be in the living room or on the back patio and bam! Eli has little scars all over from it. Just little tooth marks, that wont grow hair back, except for two on his face, which grew white hairs instead of brown/black. Zeke drew blood every time he went after Eli. Of course, after a while it stopped and they co-existed, but it wasn't fun in the beginning.

That is the way it was with Molly and Lacy,It all happend so fast,One minute they were both resting the second i was pulling them appart.It looked like a crime scene there very last fight,There was blood all over the walls,kitchen cabinets,But Lacy took Molly's big jowles to her advatage i think.Lacy ended up with stiches in her ears,face and chest.Now since then there has been a few grumbles between the two but nothing has ever come of it.We were looking at resuing other Newfs...and were told to not have 2 of the same sex.I dont know but from my expierience i can see that females will fight,And all my guys are fixed,and it has not changed anything.But with Maggy i guess she is a one in a million she could not be botherd...she will just go lay in her corner and go to sleep.The one fight they were trampling all over Maggy and she just waited for them to get out of her way,then she moved...