i have not posted here before but could really use some advice in dealing with some problems we are having with our boerboel.
first some background. we have 2 dogs, both female. we have a boxer, she is 3, and we have our boerboel, who just turned 2. both are spayed. when we got our boerboel, we had her for about 2 days and she began to act funny. we took her to the vet and found out she had parvo. she got pretty sick but recovered. our boerboel has always been a chewer and for that she is crated when we leave and at night. we have tried several times to keep her out of the crate. she does well for a few days and then chews something. she is also a humper. she humps me, occasionally my husband. never my kids. but she also just randomly humps the air or when she is cleaning herself, she will end up humping herself. because of the air humping, it never really dawned on me that it could be a dominance thing. i just thought it was a quirk. otherwise she is a good dog. a little clumsy but good.
about 1.5years ago our dogs got into it. at that time the boerboel, well, i don't think she was a year yet. our boxer was the aggressor. our boerboel was not hurt, a few scratches, nothing major. i figured it was our boxer exerting her dominance. since then no problems.
about 2 or so months ago i noticed things had shifted in their relationship. our boerboel was begining to be more dominant, eating first, going out first, etc. if our boxer got to close while she was eating she would just give a quick little warning growl. then about 2 weeks ago, they got into it bad. they had just come in from outside. there was no food present, no toys. no real spark that i could see. our boerboel was definetly the aggressor. nothing i said or did got them to stop fighting, i had to call my husband home. our boxer was injured bad enough that we had to take her to the emergency vet and she had staples, stitches, and drains. my kids were there and we were all scared to death. we decided we had to get better control o our boerboel, as she did not listen or follow any of her commands that day. we slowly started letting them around eachother again. we moved the food out in the garage and now feed them completely separately. since the boerboel is much larger, we have been treating her as the dominant dog and feeding her first. well a week later they did it again. again right after coming inside. i got it broken up quickly this time so no bad damage was done. but i cannot take this kind of fighting. both dogs seem to want to be dominant and neither seems willing to back down.
i talked to a friend that has experiance with bully breeds and she suggested i have our boerboel put down. she said the humping, chewing, and now fighting, especially fighting in the house, are all signs of her haveing major dominance issues and not knowing her place in the pack at all. she said she could be a danger to my kids. that mastiffs warning signs can be subtle and hard to read and could be missed by me or my young kids and get someone hurt. our boerboel has always been a good dog in the past. she knows all her basic commands and listens well enough. she is careful and patient with the kids althogh we have taught them to be kind and gentle with her, never to strike at all. she is a sweet dog outside of these issues and it would bother me to have to put her down.
what should i do? how can we help her? is this a "maturing, rebellion" phase, something she will get through and outgrow? how can we get the pack order if it is out of whack? or do we seriouslyneed to consider euthanization/rehoming?