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!