Squabbles Between Dogs
 

I have a super cute dog named Duchess. My grandpa has a dog named Lizzy.

Generally the two get along fine and play with their toys together and follow each other around the house . . . but, any time I take Duchess outside to go potty, Lizzy gets very upset about letting her back in the house.

She'll spend the whole time with her nose stuck in the crack of the door and I try to push her back so I can let Duchess in but sometimes I screw up and within seconds, they get into a fight.

Such as this morning. I had to go out with Duchess so I could dry her feet off which made it so I couldn't push Lizzy back from the door, seconds after I opened it they were locked onto each other pulling each other's whiskers out and what not.

I don't know how to get them to knock it off. Any advice on what I should do???

That's really rough and I think I would advise consulting your vet -- they'll have more experience.

That said: If you know you have to take one of them out of the house for a while, keep the other one out of line of sight of the door when going out and coming back in. If they don't know anything is different, they might not fight.

The other possibility is that it's the smell of outdoors triggering a territorial instinct. I don't have ANY ideas on how to deal with that, but your vet might.

What's preventing you from taking them out together though? There's a very slight possibility Lizzy feels excluded by being left behind when Duchess goes out. If they're not both large dogs, walking them together shouldn't be too difficult.

Oh I tried that but Lizzy races to get out first and then starts biting not only Duchess, but my mom's dogs who are usually outside.

The difference between Duchess and my mom's dogs are they are great big and are generally terrified of Lizzy. Duchess is itty bitty and doesn't like to put up with any nonsense.

Would I be right in assuming that both dogs are female? Females will often scrap with each other to establish pecking order. It could be that Lizzy feels that when Duchess is outside, she has the change to "take over" the house and is playing dominant by not letting her back in. If she doesn't harass the other dogs, it could be that she knows they are already submissive. Since you mention that Duchess isn't the type to put up with nonsense, they might have unresolved dominance issues.