Hi there, I have two dogs, A who is a pitbull and B who is a slightly shorter staffy/pitbull mix. Both male and I've had both since they were puppies. A for 4 years and B for 2. Both were neutered together when B was about 9 months old.
They have always gotten along very well, playing together, sleeping on top of each other. They have never fought before and neither show any signs of resource guarding.
The issue:
About a week and a half ago, while I was at work and they were outside, my neighbor was up on his roof, cleaning his gutters. A was standing on our patio, barking at the neighbors and B was standing, barking at A. My neighbor continued on when he noticed their noise had changed, turned around and the two dogs were fighting. Neighbor quickly got off his roof and they soon stopped. (This is all from what the neighbor told be/ his account of events)
When I got home, their behavior was completely normal. Excited to see me, happy to get inside. I noticed some scratches on B and initially brushed it off as nothing major, though he had gotten into the bushes and scratched himself up. I went to go clean him up and A came around to see what I was doing ( and if I was giving out treats or pets) and that's when I noticed the blood on A's neck. I immediately rushed to the neighbor to find out if they had fought( neighbor was coincidentally on his way to my house to tell me they had fought). Neighbor then told me what happened.
I went back inside, cleaned and bandaged the dogs as needed and took them to the vet, A has laceration and minor degloving on his neck that needed stitches, B just needed some anti inflammatory and ointment. Both are doing well and recovering.
The vet did not give me much advise or input on the fight, asides from "a series of unfortunate circumstances".
We haven't left them unsupervised since, but they are generally behaving as they have the last two years, friendly and loving too each other. We need to monitor then exstra closely as B keeps wanting to pick A's stitches so I am 100% sure they they have not shown any fear or aggression towards each other.
My question is:
What can I do to ensure this doesn't happen again?
With the holidays starting now, a day will come where I need to leave them alone at home again and I can't keep them separate (garden won't allow it without massive expenses) nor do I believe it to be a viable long term solution. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am terrified of leaving them alone at this stage.
submitted by /u/tears_makeme_uncomfy
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