Sorry I couldn't think of a good title. But I was a bit stumped at the dog park today. Yuki is unspayed and about 6 months old. Today, Yuki and I went to the dog park like normal. Another husky owner who owns a un-spayed white female, roughly 2 years old named Cenna, and a male who is Yuki's brother named Vader arrived about 20 minutes after we did. Yuki was playing like normal, she was wrestling with Zoey, chasing tennis balls, having a ball. Then Cenna and Vader came in. Cenna quickly approached Yuki, and immediately went to dominate Yuki. Cenna was not biting her, she was just growling and kind of tackling her to the ground. Yuki screamed bloody horror as if she was being beheaded, I never heard her screech so badly. But, I knew she was in no danger and tried to watch a moment longer, however I was a bit annoyed because Yuki was submitting and Cenna was not relenting.. Cenna's owner called her off and Cenna ran off. I went ahead and leashed Yuki for a minute so she could regain herself, and then let her go play with the dogs again. Cenna immediately went after Yuki as soon as she saw her, and Yuki ran to my side as fast as she could. Cenna was then pawing at Yuki, still growling at her. Yuki submitted, but once Cenna walked away and Yuki got up, Cenna immediately whirled around and forced Yuki back to the ground. I then leashed Yuki because I felt this was too far, Yuki had her ears set way back, tail tucked, and laid under me for about 20 minutes. Cenna's owner then realized that it was only Cenna that was making Yuki behave this way, and he then leashed her. So I let Yuki go, and after a few minutes she was fine again. Still wary and timid, but playing again. Slowly she started to relax. It was only Cenna that made her feel that way. I understand dogs maintaining pack order, but does it seem Cenna was taking this too far? Should I not have stepped in? I wanted to let Cenna teach Yuki pack order, but the way she kept dominating her /every/ time Yuki even got up, it annoyed me. And I'm also wondering why it was only Yuki that Cenna targeted. She did not try to dominate any of the other dogs there that I saw, she kept going after Yuki. Is it because Yuki is also an unspayed female, even though shes only 6 months old? I'd understand a dispute if Yuki was trying to dominate her, but she layed on her back every time Cenna approached her.. I don't think I'll encounter Cenna frequently enough to worry about it.. but I just thought it'd be interesting to bring up, and am wondering if Yuki is at fault or not. (I don't think she was, but she /is/ my dog so I thought I'd get other perspectives)

I would bet it has more to do with Yuki probably approaching heat than anything. Especially if the other female is intact as well.

arooroomom wrote:

I would bet it has more to do with Yuki probably approaching heat than anything. Especially if the other female is intact as well.

I was going to mention that Cenna's owner mentioned something along the lines of 'Cenna's probably approaching her heat'. I think after talking to him a bit, I /may/ have convinced him to consider spaying Cenna. His girlfriend had originally wanted to breed Cenna and Vader, and he is no longer together with her, and he has no interest in breeding himself. I was wondering that myself too about Yuki being close to her first heat, but I wasn't sure what the signs would be and nothing has been abnormal with her.

Maya does this to submissive dogs all the time, especially small dogs and puppies. She does it to Sophie all day long too which i would like to get her to stop but i don't know if i should stop her from doing it to Sophie. Idk if it would mess up the pack order or anything, this is one of the reasons i don't take Maya to the dog park because she's unrelenting about it and other owners don't like it. I don't like it either because she barely plays with other dogs, she just takes them to the ground and keeps them there. I don't really care if Sophie get's dominated like that at the dog park. She can handle it.

I don't mind her being dominated once or twice to put her in her place, or even when she tries to dominate a dog if she gets pinned down, but Cenna just kept going after Yuki every single time she saw Yuki. And Yuki seemed scared to death of her.

Yeah i mean once or twice. Weird, dogs usually aren't overly scared of Maya when she does that, though she also doesn't growl.

I would have stopped it too. I also believe in "letting dogs be dogs", but she is my baby and if she did submit and didn't try to fight back I would have just left. But when you bring two unaltered males OR females together its usually not a good mix.

Sheba&Kennedy wrote:

I would have stopped it too. I also believe in "letting dogs be dogs", but she is my baby and if she did submit and didn't try to fight back I would have just left. But when you bring two unaltered males OR females together its usually not a good mix.

Yeah with Yuki only being 6 months that's the reason she isn't spayed yet, I don't want to spay her until she is 7 or 8 months. Most the dogs at the park are altered and I've not been around an unspayed siberian so thats why I think I was so shocked at Cenna's reaction to Yuki.

Oh no I'm not suggesting you spay her!! I'm very glad you are waiting! I'm just saying the behavior isn't totally out of left field. Also just an FYI, Sheba hit her heat two days after her 8 mo birthday, so if I were you I would decide if you can deal with one heat before spaying (which is the better option in my opinion) or if you can't deal with it, you should think about spaying her soon. At this point it's a count down to her heat. Sheba's heat has honestly been non existant. She has no mess and the little mess she has, she cleans herself right away. It's really not that bad.

I would have been annoyed too. A few times I understand, but after that it's a bit much. I would suggest getting her spayed before she goes into heat. The dog parks around here don't even allow intact dogs into the park. You'd have to keep her away from the dog park for quite some time during the heat cycle. My Mom's dog went into heat once, and my Dad literally had to chase away several male dogs each day. They would try to jump the fence to get in our yard. Male dogs can smell that a female is in heat from quite the distance away. Lucian was neutered 10 days ago, and both female dogs I had were spayed before their first heat. They were both healthy as could be, and sadly passed from old age.

Sheba&Kennedy wrote:

Oh no I'm not suggesting you spay her!! I'm very glad you are waiting! I'm just saying the behavior isn't totally out of left field. Also just an FYI, Sheba hit her heat two days after her 8 mo birthday, so if I were you I would decide if you can deal with one heat before spaying (which is the better option in my opinion) or if you can't deal with it, you should think about spaying her soon. At this point it's a count down to her heat. Sheba's heat has honestly been non existant. She has no mess and the little mess she has, she cleans herself right away. It's really not that bad.

I was going to wait until at least 7 months and schedule it right at 7.5 months, but obviously reschedule it if she goes into heat right before or at surgery time.

Keyda81 wrote:

I would have been annoyed too. A few times I understand, but after that it's a bit much. I would suggest getting her spayed before she goes into heat. The dog parks around here don't even allow intact dogs into the park. You'd have to keep her away from the dog park for quite some time during the heat cycle. My Mom's dog went into heat once, and my Dad literally had to chase away several male dogs each day. They would try to jump the fence to get in our yard. Male dogs can smell that a female is in heat from quite the distance away. Lucian was neutered 10 days ago, and both female dogs I had were spayed before their first heat. They were both healthy as could be, and sadly passed from old age.

I've already decided I'm going to wait until 7.5 months, and I cannot predict when she will go into heat. If she ends up going through a heat cycle, it won't be too bad. Very few dogs reside in my neighborhood, if any. Even if there were any males though, I live in an apartment complex. It'd be a little hard to break in lol. Cloud is also neutered, and both are crated when I'm gone.

Sounds like you have a handle on things!
I wouldn't have been happy in your situation either and I don't think you did anything wrong by stopping it.
Also, I really hope you did convince him to get his girl spayed!! His girlfriend didn't sound like much of a keeper anyway

Sheba&Kennedy wrote:

Sounds like you have a handle on things!
I wouldn't have been happy in your situation either and I don't think you did anything wrong by stopping it.
Also, I really hope you did convince him to get his girl spayed!! His girlfriend didn't sound like much of a keeper anyway

Well she was really nice, I met her at PetCo.. but Cenna is /not/ even /near/ show quality. She's really oddly shaped, and shes got a horrid snap tail.. I wouldn't even consider /not/ spaying her XD