What never should happen has happened.
The girls were in a fight. They both escaped with scratches and bruises, including yours truly in my attempt to get them separated. Luckily nobody got hurt, other than our feelings.
They were both shaken up for the rest of the day. The trust they had in each other was clearly hurt too. I just kept them apart for the remainder of the day, which wasn't too difficult, they weren't interested in each other at all anymore.
What caused it I am not sure about. They were playing in the other room with one of our guests visiting at the moment. Apparently Zerline cornered herself in a game of tug, made some kind of mad jump attempt to get away which made her land with her full weight on Tilde, which set things quickly spiraling out of control into the wrong direction.
The next day all seemed to be forgotten. I was relieved to see them groom each other and play together again like nothing had happened. It was a close call. Incidents like this can ruin their relationship. We have learned an expensive lesson. The first of the cat's proverbial nine lives is wasted.
It's always a risk with two females. I was warned beforehand. They are both personalities with a strong Hovawart character. It was also a sign of Zerline maturing and not obeying Tilde, the elder, automatically anymore.
I can't change what happened. It has become a part of growing up together. It will always be in the back of my mind as a cautionary tale going forward. All I can do now is prevent it from happening again. No more tug. No more playing alone with a guest too. But as long as their relationship is still intact, which it seems, I can also exhale a huge sigh of relief.
Having had two female hovawarts I can perfectly understand your feelings. They had a few fights the first years and it was bad (for us, everything was fine with them). We learned how to prevent the escalation: no food, no toys, no other type of resources (they fought for a stone, once). We learned also to read their body language. Now we have a male and a female (hovawart) and they live in perfect harmony. We had three dogs for a few months and the two girls seemed to get along better thanks to the presence of the male. Two hovawart girls are a bit more difficult to handle, in my experience
ReplyDeleteSo sorry that happened :-( Shit, of course, happens, when one wants or expects it the least. We were fortunate our dogs always got along; even Jasmine with Bruin who was quite grumpy.
ReplyDeleteWe always had a boy and a girl in hopes it helps them get along better than two of the same sex. But you just never know. Shit happens. They felt that had something to work out. Glad nobody got seriously hurt. <3