Reply #15: Force the younger one to the floor, on his side [View All]

[Jose Diablo]

then lay across his neck, not all your weight, just enough to for him to know he is the lesser. This is called mounting the dog to establish dominance. Then pet and make praising talk to the other older one.

It is a way to re-establish a hierarchy between them as both view you as the leader. Their sex drive for the female and it's disruption of their hormonal balance has disrupted the hierarchy between them. There is a hormonal relationship between dominance-subjection between animals. When the younger one experiences being dominated again, his hormones will re-establish its hold on his actions and it will be easier for him to accept the older ones dominance. Eventually though, the younger one will have to become the dominant male, as the older one weakens through age, it's inevitable.

The social hierarchy within herd/pack animals is in a large measure controlled by the hormones released during their conflicts. The winner of a conflict gets a reward of hormones that say it is the 'top' dog and the loser gets a different hormone that makes the loser more apt to retreat at the prospects of a future conflict. There is a chemical basis for thinking in certain modes. This is how order is established with-in their social structures. It's also the basis for rewarding the 'best' with more off-spring, a way for nature to keep the strongest and best able to survive in a prefered position with-in the pack.

You being the leader of the pack are the one to re-establish order with-in the pack.

Edit: Or you could let them fight it out. But dogs are specie that can and do kill one another, so the prefered way is to keep peace between them, if posible.