Post fights - quicker to fight again?

Quick background recap for anyone who doesn't know...

A few months ago we adopted a staffie x who turned out to have deeper issues than anyone realised, which resulted in a couple of spectacular fights, the 2nd of which left me in hospital and our first staffie, Chaos, with a neck full of bite wounds. He's physically fine now, but we sadly decided to have Daisy pts.

I've worked since then to make sure he's ok with other dogs, generally with fair success. He's always been slightly nervous and the less successful interactions have been no different to those before the fights. He can snap at in your face dogs, but then settles quite quickly. We're working on that.

This weekend we had a friend's dog to stay. Ed's stayed before and they've got on well. The only issue has been, and still is, that Ed humps a lot and Chaos doesn't like it. Fair do's! For the whole weekend it was fine, we discouraged Ed from humping and he seemed to be starting to understand, and the boys played together nicely. Roughish at times, but evenly matched even though Ed's diddly wee, and nothing at all concerning.

Today Ed's owner came to pick him up and we sat in the kitchen chatting. Ed starting humping again and I felt it less easy to correct him in front of his owner. She did, in fairness, intervene a couple of times, but a few times Chaos gave him a serious growl and once or twice there was a quick snap. They then seemed to settle and played snappy teeth a bit. I didn't quite see what then happened as they were the other side of the table, but I think Ed put his foot on Chaos' back and Chaos just flipped. Lots of serious snarling and lunging, but thankfully he didn't try to latch on. I flew round the table, kicked the back door open and, seeing that Chaos wasn't holding on, literally flung Ed outside and slammed the door.

End of fight, harness on to make sure, but all was well with the world. They both settled down and we had to stop them playing again!

What I can't work out, though, is if Chaos just simply lost his rag, having told Ed probably 5 or 6 times that he really didn't like being humped, or if he did actually go into serious fight mode more quickly than he would have before. It felt like he did.

I know it's hard to say without being there - it's hard to say when I was! - but from you experience do you think this is something to be concerned about to the point of limiting play with other dog, except for Nola who he lives with, or is that over reacting? If he is more ready to fight than previously because of the experience with Daisy, is this something that fades with time or is it longer lasting?

I've not had experience of this sort of thing before.

Needless to say, we won't be taking on another dog, either permanent or foster, in the near future. I couldn't go through that again.

Staffie's are forgiving dogs in my experience. I think the dynamics are different when two dogs are couped up in a house, as the one that is being annoyed has nowhere to run so to speak! The other dog was trying to dominate him by the sound of it and clearly he didn't like it. That is fair enough. I think the other dog's owner needs some training ..... not you or your dog!!
I think there are a few factors at play here;

1/ He may be a little more wary from incidents with the staffy x rescue  fights you describe (eek!)
2/ you are definately on a heightened alert from the stress of it all!!
3/ I think controlled interactions with other unknown dogs may be the best thing until you both get your confidence back. And try and see the ones he gets on best with as much as possible to get him back in his happy place!!

I don't see a huge issue here. My Flo regularly mixes with two ruddy great Blood hounds and the scenario is always the same. The older Blood hound will show little interest (Female) whilst the younger one will pester her (male). She will tell him off full stop. Growling and a snap and then that's it. They will then just rub along fine.

The exception to this is if treats are thrown out for the Blood hounds and then the Female will ward Flo off. Flo makes no bones about this and will wait her turn while the other two polish the treats off. I have to add that this is in their home not Flo's.

In my experience with my Flo, whilst fights can happen, if she feels tension in the air she will react accordingly. Unless it's a full on aggressive fight i remain calm and simply separate.

To be fair, Chaos had given fair warning that he wasn't comfortable with the attention. I certainly wouldn't say he has become more reactive.

Thank you! That's exactly what my husband said. Apparently there was something similar on Sunday when I wasn't there and George is sure it was simply Chaos saying 'how many times do I need to tell you???'

And yes, I know the Daisy things have given me a hard knock. It's not that I don't trust Chaos, it's more that I really don't want to see a fight like that ever again.