There are times when our three shelties don't exactly get along. Now, a full 99.9% of the reasons they don't see eye to eye on occasion have to do with the fact that our alpha dog, Declan, always has to assert his "authority" over the other dogs. And, let it be known that Declan's also not afraid to let the largest member of our pack, one-year old Dougie, our Collie, that he's the boss.

Dougie does get a bit over-bearing at times, since he simply doesn't understand that his size and weight are a bit much for his Sheltie play partners. When his unbridled enthusiasm is fostered on Declan, the resulting "corrective measures" employed by the latter upon the former must usually be stopped by us or a serious injury may result.

But we were surprised when we discovered, quite by accident,  that Declan has sustained an injury to his body from one of the other dogs...

On Monday evening, 6/12/06, I happened to be sitting in our living room when an "altercation" broke out between Declan, Lily & Lyric (Declan's mother, BTW!). As Declan turned to show teeth to his Mom, Lily took the opportunity to quite literally pounce on his back and get in a few licks. All this happened in the mere blink of an eye and I immediately broke up the spat before any real damage could be inflicted. Or, so I thought.

Later in the week, I happened to be scratching Declan's left ear & he jumped a bit as if I had hurt him. A closer inspection of the ear revealed that he had suffered a slight wound...in fact, Lily had bitten right through his ear! First aide was administered by my bride in the form of peroxide and pain-reducing oinmnet over the next few days and I'm happy (and relieved) to say that three days after finding the injury his ear's almost as good as new.

We try to keep an eye on the pack to make sure they behave like good dogs, but sometimes they simply act like antagonistic human beings.