Let me set the mood of this story a little bit with some back ground, I work night shift, starting at 10:30pm and ending at 7:00am local time. I haven't been 100% the last few days, scratchy throat, sinus head ache, you know all the things that make it hard to sleep. Add all that up and despite my best efforts I didn't get to sleep until around 12:30pm, so needless to say I wanted to sleep until around 8 or 9pm and preferably uninterrupted, sadly this was not meant to be today, at around 5:30 my eyes snap open as I recognize the panicked sound of my room mates daughter pounding on my bedroom door. Both her parents are at work leaving me as the token adult at the house, (had today been a normal day I would have been awake and well rested prior to the kid getting home from school sadly not the case here) the pounding on the door is immediately followed by the equally panicked shouts of, "They're fighting and I can't make them stop!!"
At first I think she is referring to her parents, but as the grogginess quickly retreats from my brain I figure out that she means the dogs, I shout back to her that I'm on my way gabbing my glasses and a pair of sweat pants as quickly as I can, fully expecting to find all 3 dogs in a vicious, snapping, growling, fur ball of disaster, and find myself relived to see that it's only the two oldest dogs fighting. Anyone who has ever tried to break up a dog fight knows that as the head count involved in a dog fight goes up the difficulty with breaking up that fight compounds upon itself. I'm still expecting one hell of a challenge as I enter the room, but holding out hope that they hadn't completely gone off the deep end I shout out in my most commanding growly voice, "HEY, KNOCK IT OFF!!!" and shock of all shocks, they did. All 3 dogs stand there for a second wagging their tails at me trying to look innocent, they younger dog, apparently thinking it had all just been good fun starts trying to rial one of the older dogs up again, but fortunately is making no progress as the other 2 are staring rather intently at me.
My intent at this point is to get the older 2 separated so I start directing 1 of them into the kennel and the other 2 quickly follow suit, not wanting to struggle with it anymore than I will already have to I decide to leave the younger 2 in the kennel while I clean and examine the oldest one first. Turns out on her it's mostly just slobber around her neck with a few nicks on her forelegs, 1 on her brow, and 1 on her chin. After finishing with her bath I dry her off a bit and set her off in a separate room and drag the other dog off to the shower. This one is about half the age of the older one and she is by far the most torn up, all appearing to be superficial though thankfully. This pup will most likely have a "black eye" and a "swollen lip" for a while, not to mention the scrapes in both ears, and various nicks on her own forelegs, brow, chin, and chest.
My intention was to keep the 2 dogs separate for at least a full day, but due to a bit of bad timing the second dog managed to escape from the confines of the bathroom before I could get the older dog secured into the separate kennel and much to my dismay, my room mates daughter rushed at them trying to pull them apart, Much to my relief she listened when I called her away from them, and the dogs didn't even attempt to pick up the fight again, they simply started licking each others wounds. Keeping a watchful eye on them I finished making the second kennel ready for occupation while they continued to lick each others wounds, and as good as this looks and sounds I chose to error on the side of caution as I honestly don't know what it was that sparked off this spat between the two of them and put the older dog in the second kennel and the younger 2 together to prevent the kid from having to deal with this again until we can be sure they won't go after each other again.