Help! I need some dog advice from people who have multiple huskies. I have had huskies for over twenty years, having three at one time several times over the years. Until two weeks ago I had two female huskies - one five years old and a two years old. Two weeks ago we took in a rescue female husky that our vet believes is 12-18 months old. We have been having problems with the new one and our younger one. Most of the time they are very friendly to each other. They will play and body slam each other and have lots of fun. Then for no reason what-so-ever they will attack each other.
The first time I got between them and got bitten by both. We have had three of these major attacks in the past two weeks. I can't figure out what is triggering it or how to prevent it. They are both ending up with nasty cuts on their front legs each time. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

This happens while they are just playing or is there a toy or some kind of treat involved?

Edit: never mind, you did say "" for no reason what so ever"" so I'm assuming just playing.

Artic_Wind wrote:

This happens while they are just playing or is there a toy or some kind of treat involved?

When we first got her there was some food aggression, but that quickly went away. What we have now does not involve toys or treats or any specific territory. They can be playing nicely one moment and the next moment they are attacking each other and it gets bad fast. We cannot figure out why this is happening as there are no signs we have picked up on. Typically no growling or staring, they just go at it. We are lost as to what is causing it or how to identify the trigger. We are not new to Huskies, as these are numbers 4, 5 and six for us.

Being a rescue, we really don't know any type of background, like was she in a household that had another dog and aggression and things like that were part of their time together, so this may even be why you are not seeing a trigger. Your newest one may have spent its most formative time in a situation where she has *learned* aggression. (Ugh, i just now woke up, I'm not sure I'm wording this correctly, I hope someone else chimes in)

My guess would be excitement is the trigger. If she never got the chance to learn proper play at her last place then she could just have bad responses to over excitement and your other dog gets sucked in. Kinda like when a poking match with your sibling escalates into a punching match because someone starts poking harder to out do the other. I would start by interrupting their play occasionally if they start playing louder or chase looks like it might begin. Interrupt and do a little training. Ask them to go through some sit, stay, lay down work. Reward then let them go back to playing and see how they do. What you are trying to achieve is setting your own boundary of excitement that you don't want them to go over and you want that level set just lower than where the fight breaks out. The training will help establish you with the rescue husky and help both dogs find a common goal.

Jenn, very good!! Your suggestion is pretty much what I've done with Avalanche. He's hyper and will play with anyone /anything at the drop of a hat. Over the past couple of years he's learned to be calmer but when Sasha came home with me he'd aggravate her until she told him to 'bugger off'. I still use 'enough' when the play in-house gets to the roudy point, but they've learned to self regulate their play

Strange, I posted a response with a picture but neither showed up.  Any way I don't fully know her history.  She was last living in a hotel room with a homeless guy.  I think at one point she had a good home as I think she is trained on an electric fence.  When we first got her while on a leash she would walk off the property.  Then I put up flags to demark the boundary of our electric fence, and immediately she would not go within four feet of the flags.  She knows the sit command and is fully housebroken.  We crate her at night, and while she sometimes growls about going in once in she does not make a sound and sleeps there all night.  We really want to make this work as she is a very sweet dog, but we have to stop these fights.

Here are all three of them. My five year old is on the right, the two year old is in the center and the new one is on the left

I would definitely follow Jenn's advice - sounds spot on. Also, remember, this is only 2 weeks into the new dog and everyone is still establishing hierarchy.

That's a nice looking pack you have there Howard. BTW, my biggest problem when messages don't appear seems to be when I preview them - and then forget to save what I've just previewed, but you're still a youngster so that couldn't be the problem, right?

Yes, that was probably the issue - I previewed it and must not have clicked to save it. Here is what I was trying to post, it's a picture of the new dog playing tug of war very nicely with the middle one - usually they get along very well playing like this.

Such a great pic! Does this kind of play end up in an argument?

You have some beautiful huskies

When they play like this there is usually no problem. It is more often when they are just hanging out and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose for not obvious reason. Thanks for you kind words about the dogs, yours look very nice as well.