[Legal speak: This is just my opinion. Don't use it without using your brain. -- I discuss some pretty hairy concepts here of dog interaction, and while it works for me, it may not for you. Some dogs will always be a problem with each other, and this will NEVER work with them. Know your dogs. Also, accidents happen, and are more likely to happen with unfamiliar and younger dogs, but not eliminated even when dogs are totally "cool" with each other. Risks aplenty, don't even read on if you are not willing to take responsibilities for your own actions.]

I stumbled on this article while researching another upcoming installment of my “Dogs will be Dogs” post, and thought I’d mention this first.
Some researchers suggest eliminating challenges to reduce aggression:

“Treatment of inter-dog aggression with normal dogs that are fighting is easily achieved by establishing “hierarchy”. The dog that is physically most likely to win will be fed, walked, or given attention first. If the fighting only occurs over special food items or toys, these triggers can simply be removed from the environment.”

I actually find myself disagreeing with rather a lot of the above (the whole dominance/hierarchy myth is another topic entirely and is pretty embarrassing in a document dated 2007, IMHO, but I’ll ignore that for now). Note that I suspect that it would partly work, especially the removal of the “offending toy”. It’s like seeing your child attempt to ride a bike. If you stop them, “Whoa there, son! What are you thinking? Let’s just put that crazy thing somewhere safe. There we go.” they will not get hurt. Remove the bicycle. Done. Problem solved. But, wouldn’t you rather see your child learn the SKILL of riding? Learn that falls do happen, but they are not the “end of the world”? With dogs, especially dogs that are bred to be intelligent enough to make judgment calls, shouldn’t we be considering the teaching of social skills to be just as important as “doing what you’re told”?

We have in fairly recent history gotten into the habit of exerting so much control on our dogs’ world, that it’s almost at the point that they are hardly even able to remember what it is like to be a dog. This actually can be handy for non-working breed dogs that are not bred to have judgment as part of the breed goal, but for a Boerboel, it’s sort of wasting a lot of grey matter, IMHO.

Here is an alternative strategy: Just last night after feeding, I gave a single bone to one of the dogs in isolation (he is a V rated Schutzhund (SchH) 3 GSD who has tons of extra energy, and he gets a few extra perks for that sometimes) and once he had taken a good amount of the meat off of it, I allowed all the dogs to be together, with the one (still meaty) bone. One of these dogs is new and still learning to deal with SchH-guy as she doesn’t really like him, but LOVES food items. This can only be described a challenge for all the dogs. Who gets the bone?

Before I go on, a whole LOT of caveats:

1. This is not something to try if you’re a passive person, if you’re not able to control your dogs or break up a ‘real’ fight if one escalates to that level.
2. I’m not a “dog whisperer” just some guy on the internet with an opinion, so make sure it matches with your opinions.
3. This is not a “Dogs 101″ lesson. I’m doing this as a more advanced lesson, after already letting them stress over space issues (sharing a space in the yard, then advancing to the house, then a couch, then the tight space of a car, etc. etc.) and while I’m pretending to ignore them, I will not leave them unattended while they work through this. As I mentioned, some of the dogs are new, but they have been worked through “getting along” exercises for two months before I deemed them ready for this.
4. These are relatively intelligent, stable working dogs, Boerboels and GSDs, with known pedigrees and basic manners. They have been bred to make judgment calls.
5. We have already set down rules, and I spent over two months ensuring they all know them. Rule one is “we do not eat our friends” as we jokingly call it: We don’t fight if at all possible, unless they have been provoked, and even then, only correct others within reason (more on symbolic fighting another time)
6. You probably don’t want to do this sort of food based challenge regularly, or when they are hungry. I did this after a feeding, and typically it’s best to have more bones than dogs, so that it appears to be an endless fountain of bones out there, a well of yummy calcium and gristle that will never run dry, as this will desensitize them to the NEED to protect over them.
7. Reduce variables. Don’t do this when the cable guy is over to wire up the new TV, or when the kids are having a sleep over and having a pillow fight.

On the point #5, above, if my one Shep decides to bite the other just because he’s chasing a stick (that — the “bite the running GSD” — seems a popular game here, for some reason) the one who was running is totally within his rights to say “stop that!” with a symbolic fight (which tends to leave the biter on his back saying “uncle!”)

So what happens with the bone? There is a lot of really tense negotiations over it. One dog will leave it on the ground, possibly because he or she is done with it, possibly because they can’t stand the pressure of the others watching (this actually reminds me of what it’s like for me when I take a drink from a busy fountain on a hot day. Your “empathy sense” will make you either say “screw those behind me in line” or “ya, well, I guess I can come back in a bit and get in line again”.)

Describing this sort of setup to a more traditional “Dominance” based trainer will raise their hackles (so to speak ). I have discussed this to a long term show breeder and he says simply “I don’t tolerate that.” While I see his point, that’s not exactly the skill sets and judgments that I am striving to achieve here, but I do believe that truly “working your dog” via Schutzhund, etc. will also teach some of these framework skills, at least as far as judgment goes.

Eventually the bone have been passed from one to the other all evening, and once the Boerboel bitch is sure it has been stripped of every scrap of sustenance, it sits unattended in the corner while all the dogs sleep together.

Anyway, if you do allow your dogs to discuss things like bones, expect a bit of growling. With more socially aware dogs, growls are just a tool, a part of the language. I sort of imagine it like those crabs in Finding Nemo who look at each other saying “Hey!” a lot. Really, it’s communication, and fundamentally it’s fine — in moderation. If they are not getting along, then I prefer if they would just time themselves out. Once the dogs get comfortable with each other, they sort of hone listening skills and can tell the fun little playful “my bone” growls, to the more serious “if you come any closer I swear to god I will flatten you and those you love!” sort of growls. It’s actually quite fascinating.