Dog woes

When I started this blog over a year ago it was to help me cope with being a lonely shut-in mom. Since then things have changed and now I get out more and have a good friend whom I talk to about a lot of that stuff. She too is a sahm so she totally understands and gets what goes on with me. That aspect of my life is going so much better. Today, however, I'm having other issues. Dog issues. Up until 2 weeks ago things were very harmonious here in our house with our 4 dogs. Up until last Friday morning I had 4 dogs. Ever since two weeks ago things have been going downhill with our dogs. I am finding this to be very upsetting. We had Jesse our 4 year old reverse brindle boxer that we adopted as a puppy. We have Lilly our tan boxer of about 7 years that we rescued from the streets in our nearby town. We have Piper our 1 year old gray brindle pit bull/german sheperd mix whom we adopted from a couple up north in a big city. They had rescued her from a construction site when she was small enough to fit into a 6 inch pipe. We have Maggie our approximately 3 year old American bulldog/boxer that we adopted from the local shelter we have been volunteering at. Two weeks ago Maggie and Lilly got into a dog fight. Blood was involved. No serious injuries and on that occasion Lilly got the best of Maggie. We worked with them and thought things were going well. Last Friday morning I take my dogs for a walk, all 4 of them. It wasn't a great walk. I was having trouble with my patience and when you are walking 4 dogs that is a must. In the process of dealing with them I had lost my iphone headphones. I realized this about half a mile in to the walk. So we turned back early to look for them. As we were almost home the dogs across the street came out to the end of their property warning us not to come to their territory. I managed to keep 220 pounds of dogs from going across the street for a fight. Believe me I was surprised too. Jesse was the one that wanted to fight the most. I managed to calm everyone down enough to start walking home again. I took about 10 steps when I felt a tug on the leash. I thought it was Jesse trying to go fight with the dogs. I look back and she is on the ground on her side. At first I thought she was protesting about leaving like she used to do as a puppy. Then I realized the dogs across the street and shut up and left. Piper and I walked up to her. Piper sniffed her face and dropped to her belly with her head on the ground. Then I knew something was wrong. Piper is what we call our nurse dog because she is always checking on the dogs who are sick or injured. Within a minute of realizing something was wrong, Jesse stopped breathing and she was gone. I was hysterical. I was in shock. An hour ago she was playing outside and now she's dead. For no apparent reason. Just gone. I couldn't and still can't wrap my brain around this. I took the other 3 dogs and tied them to a nearby tree. Then I carried Jesse as far as I could towards our house. The loss of our first boxer at about 3 years old was so hard for us, but at least we knew the reason. She was found to have cancer, dying from it, and we had to decide to put her down that same day. Now to lose one like that. It just makes it hard not to worry. The next day was my youngest's birthday party. At the end of the party Lilly and Maggie again get into it only this time Maggie got the best of Lilly. Lilly was injured for a few days. Then just as Lilly was healing they got into again 2 days ago. Now she's injured even worse and I'm emotionally a mess! I'm afraid almost all the time that they are going to get into it. This makes me grouchy and angry because it is very stressful for me. That doesn't help the dogs feel better about being around each other though. There is a ton of other stuff going on with our lives keeping us really busy so dealing with this is hard enough. On top of it though Maggie is in heat, which I believe is part of the problem. Now Lilly is injured badly enough she can only walk on 3 legs so I have to carry her out of the house and stay by her to make sure Maggie doesn't see this as an opportunity. Poor Piper lost her playmate and is now dealing with the stress of those two fighting and me being upset. I watch the Dog Whisperer and I know a lot of things to do to work on. Honestly though I'm not strong enough right now. I'm still mourning the loss of Jesse and now dealing with my feelings about all of this. It's not just Maggie or just Lilly, it's the both of them. Lilly has lost her buddy of 3 years so I'm sure it's bothering her. People around me know I love my dogs but most of them don't understand how much or why I feel about them the way I do. I spend all my day with my dogs. I train them. They are my walking buddies, my playmates, my hiking buddies. I can talk about them for hours. It's the same with the dogs I work with at the shelter. Except for my husband though most people don't want to talk that long about my dogs. It's funny because I treat my dogs like dogs and yet care about them more than just to say I lost a dog or have a dog. I'm hoping venting in here will help me sort through my emotions so I can get back to working on my dog issues. Tomorrow we are picking up muzzles for both so at least I can stop them from damaging each other. With those I will feel more confidant about working with them too. If you read this thank you for listening.