Lisa M

I am joining this conversation late but will put my .02 cents in anyways. There is a BIG difference between the ghetto "dog fighting" that all the gangbangers bet on and the dog fighting breeders use as a test for gameness.

It is not uncommon for dogs not to get along, especially same sex situations. Why do you want so bad for your Dobe to be with other dogs? Why not just keep him separate if there is a problem? IMO the biggest mistake people make is forcing dogs to get along. Some dogs just don't like other dogs! By forcing them to get along you not only risk injury to the dogs but you also risk injury to the people involved who get in the middle of it. Also, once a dog gets into one fight there is usually no turning back and dog aggression will escalale and become a problem for the life of the dog. I also read and responded to your other post regarding your dobe's nervous behaviour. This "may" be related to the dog aggression. Sometimes (but not always) dog aggression can be a fear based reaction. Often times a confident dog won't initiate any fights becasue they won't feel the need to unless they are actually being challenged. On the other hand, a weak dog is always feeling threatened and sometimes will start things to try and "scare that threat away". I am guessing this is the situation in your case. My advice is to keep your Dobe separated from other dogs, especially other males. By putting him in these types of situations you may actually be lessening his confidence which is the last thing you need. YOU become the dogs fun, don't worry about the other dogs. IMO dog to dog socialization is over rated and not necessary in most cases. Good luck.

Sorry to be so late to join in here, I am new to this forum. I have to agree with newfiesmom. It sounds like this behaviour is genetic. More than likely one of the parents or perhaps even grandparents had a weak temperament and this was thrown in this litter. Dogs with questionable tempraments should NEVER be bred. You can work on building his confidence BUT you will never totally change it and you will probably never have a 100% trustworthy dog. What training and confidence building will do is help your dog "deal" with situations a little better but it won't change the genetic makeup of the dog. Unfortunately he's just genetically hardwired to be this way. Not too much you can do except basically "condition" him to different situations. I don't mean to sound negative but it sounds like this dog could be a liability even with lots of your TLC. Be careful!! As far as neutering changing things. It won't. Good luck.

The dog may not have necessarily been beaten. Do you know this for a fact? Many dogs are just genetically nervous and it's very hard to change that. Temperament is very much genetic and if either parent or even grandparent had this problem you can bet some of the offspring will too. You can work on building its confidence but if this bahaviour is hardwired due to genetics, you will never have a totally confident dog. Good luck.

I am new here and I own 2 American Bulldogs. A four year old male and an 8 month old female. Does anyone else here own this fantastic breed??