I am in total new territory here, so help would be GREATLY appreciated.

My parents recently got a new dog (a Pit/Boxer mix) who is an absolute angel around humans. I recently came and visited with Echo to introduce the two, as Echo always comes when I visit my parents.

... It really didn't go well. Full on, violent fights.

The short story is that there is some dominance/possessive issues on the new dog's side, and over excitability and possible territorial issues on my dog's side- and it's resulting in gnarly fights.

Let me give you the full story here so curious parties have all the info:

My husky Echo is an extremely gregarious, social dog. She can be a little bit of a turd about sharing toys, but nothing really horrible. She's not aggressive about it, but has wrinkled her nose/exposed teeth, which I always correct her on. I should also mention that this is ONLY at home, in her "territory". Out in public, at a dog park, or another dog's house, she is always the submissive one and will give up on any conflict. She's the most tolerant, sweet, social butterfly of a dog I've ever had. She's generally a super submissive dog with people AND other dogs.

The new dog my parents brought home is a little bit of a mystery. They know she's had litters of puppies before the rescue got her, and that her previous owner was arrested, which is why she ended up at the shelter. She is extremely sweet around people, and at face value seems TOLERANT of other dogs, though to me it seems clear that she's a little uncomfortable around them. She'd rather just be around people.

When we introduced the two dogs, they met outside the house on the street, and we took them for a short walk together before we took them inside. This is where I first observed the reserved, but friendly discomfort of the new dog, and the completely tone-deaf excitement of my husky.

That continued inside. Echo did not seem to pick up on the dog's desire to be left alone, and tried to engage her in play (this happens a lot, I don't think she's good at picking up those signals). Eventually, the pit mix actually did give in an start playing for about 15 minutes. The night went okay- though we separated them when we went to bed.

The next morning we fed them at the same time, but spread apart to avoid personal space/food possessiveness issues. Problem is- they're both grazers, so they didn't eat right away. MY bad was not removing the food right away when it was clear they weren't going to eat.

About 15 minutes later, my dog decided to eat from her bowl. The rescue dog was standing nearby, and had decided that Echo's food bowl was her food bowl. A really nasty fight ensued, that I had to physically break up. This one was clearly instigated by the new dog, but both of them actually got a good bite out of the other one.

After that, we had them on leashes for the rest of the day with no other actual fights. We noticed to potential issues, though- the rescue dog would often put her head over Echo's shoulders and try to dominance-hump (which we would stop), and Echo was completely oblivious as usual and wanted to play when the other dog was clearly uncomfortable. The other dog WOULD try to play back at her though, just not at the same high-intensity.

The next day went very similarly, where they were both closely supervised, fed separately, all the toys removed, etc.

That evening, though- another fight broke out. I unfortunately am not sure what exactly started it. I know the rescue dog was standing over Echo while she was laying down in a dominant posture (which Echo doesn't like but doesn't usually freak out about when other dogs do this), but I'm not sure if that's what started it or not- my eyes were on something else that moment. They started fighting again, injured each other again, Echo seemed REALLY, truly, uncharacteristically mad.

We left the next day, but I'm not sure what to do about future visits. I identified different issues for the dogs:

Maggie (The New Rescue): Generally uncomfortable but generally civil around other dogs, food aggressive towards dogs (but not people), generally possessive of things she considers to belong to her, and is trying to dominate Echo physically.
Echo: Way higher energy than the other dog, I don't think she's good at reading the other dog's signals, constantly wants to play, and POTENTIALLY slightly possessive over my parents house since we lived there for a while (though I didn't really observe a lot of this), and she seems especially willing to fight back to this dog, even though her usual instinct is to submit/run, which could be a matter of the aforementioned familiarity with the space.

The solutions for Echo I feel like would be working more on her "settle" command so that she'll actually chill out around this dog. She never displays possessiveness so I don't really know if or how I should work on that.

For the other dog- my parents clearly need to work on becoming the masters of the house so the dog doesn't feel like she needs to defend her stuff. I personally have never seen someone succeed with training the physical domination behavior out of a dog though...



Any advice? I'd just like to be able to visit my parents without having to worry about these dogs really, seriously injuring each other. They don't need to be friends, I just want them to at least tolerate each other. An alternative would be to board Echo when I go, but she'd hate it, it's expensive, and my parents want to see her too.

*For anyone worried about their injuries- they're not horrible. They both punctured some tooth-holes in each other, the skin doesn't seem to be pulled away or anything, we were lucky. Maggie the new dog is on antibiotics just in case, and I'm watching Echo's wounds carefully.

For the most part it sounds like you have a good grasp on what you need to do and have started. Removing toys and food and working on being calm are your 3 biggies in my opinion. A little more time together in neutral territory I think would help as well. Don't only just meet your folks and their dog at their house if you can. Meet them for lunch at the park where there's some other dogs to redirect some of Echo's energy on so this dog might be able to breathe a little. Or take them on a good long walk together without going back to the house. If your parents could go through an obedience class that would probably help their dog get some positive interactions with other dogs as well while still giving her space from other dogs.

My girl is stupid dominant. She rules the pack one way or another eventually. My latest dog came in as not dominant but clueless and a without manners. He would butt into what you were doing, he would take something if he wanted to. Guy had never had discipline a day in his life except when on leash. He's big and they got into it bad one day over a rope toy. Kenzi doesn't play with toys she just didn't want him to have something. I broke it up, but it was in her head that he was trouble and she ambushed him one day when he wasn't expecting it. No injuries but she got her point across and established herself. It's been sunshine and rainbows ever since. To an extent they have to work some stuff out on their own, but within reason. The more you remove triggers and the calmer you can get Echo and the more relaxed the other dog becomes it will enable them to work things out on a level 3 rather than a level 10, which is sometimes the most you can ask for until you better know the new dog.

For now I would keep both dogs leashed when inside together and try to avoid them being in cramped spots like between the cabinets in the kitchen or a tight hall until you have a better idea how the new dog is going to be when she settles and her real personality starts to come out. It can take a couple months or more sometimes to really see a dog's true self. As you start really getting a feel for the new dog and you get more training and socialization with each other you should start to see some improvement.

Also, two females can just be sketchy on interactions in general, especially if the one was just recently fixed and/or one is still intact. Women, sheesh...lol.