Earlier this week I shared a post with some tips for multi-dog households and it received a lot of great feedback! If you missed my post earlier this week, here’s a short recap: If you have multiple dogs, I strongly recommend building an individual relationship with each dog before you attempt to work with both dogs together. For example, if you want them to walk nicely on the leash side-by-side, you first need to teach each dog to heel and walk politely apart from one another. Once they’ve mastered the skills individually you can put them together and work on walking nicely in that new context. (Read the original post here.) Many of you asked for more multi-dog household tips, so in this blog post I’m going to elaborate on some of the benefits of building individual relationships with each of your dogs, as that really is the key to success.
Working relationships
You need a working relationship with each of your dogs! I know this seems obvious, but it’s something that is so often overlooked. It is common for folks to get a second (or third) dog and for that dog to just kind of jump into the mix. The new dog can usually learn the flow of the household from observing and being a part of the pack, so from our human point of view it often appears as if everything is fine—until it’s not. We usually discover that it’s not fine when we need the new dog to listen to us but he completely blows us off. If you’re lucky, this learning moment occurs in a relatively low key situation, but if you’re unlucky, it’s in the midst of an emergency. My advice: Don’t risk finding out the hard way that your new dog doesn’t know to listen to you! Start developing that working relationship with the new dog right now (it’s never too late!). You do this by working with the new dog one-on-one—just you and the new dog. Take out the leash, take out some treats, put everyone else away and get to work!
Separation is a fact of life
Sometimes when I make the suggestion to put the other dogs away people respond with something to the effect of “Oh, they’re not going to be happy about that!” If that’s what goes through your mind when you think about working with each of your dogs one-on-one, then please keep reading. Dogs need to be taught that it’s okay to be separated—they usually don’t figure this out on their own. It’s crucial to teach your dogs how to be comfortable on their own because separation is simply a fact of life. It’s inevitable that at some point one dog will have to go to the vet, or will have to stay overnight at the vet for surgery, or they’ll need to be boarded separately for safety reasons, or one will pass away before the other. Teach them now that they’re okay to be apart and it’ll be far less stressful for them when those inevitable moments arise. If you can’t separate your dogs long enough to work with a dog one-on-one, then you have some work to do. Crate training is a great place to start, followed by crate manners.
One-on-one work builds confidence
Working with each dog one-on-one also builds each dog’s confidence. It is very common for dogs in multi-dog households to become dependent upon each other. They might appear to know their basic commands, for example, but when you separate them you might discover that one dog was really just following the other! This is especially true if you have a dog who is the insecure/nervous/fearful type. It can be helpful for an insecure dog to have a more confident canine role model but as with everything, balance is needed. Your insecure dog can learn to “borrow” confidence from his more confident companion, which can appear to us humans as if he’s making progress. But if your insecure dog’s behavior regresses anytime he’s without the confident dog, then that’s an indication that he’s not developing confidence on his own. A dog who is only borrowing confidence is not actually becoming his best self; he’s still insecure/nervous/fearful under the surface. If one or both of your dogs seems unsure of themselves when you work with them one-on-one, then I strongly recommend taking more time to work together in this way in order to develop their confidence. Every dog deserves to become confident in their own abilities, and the only way to build that confidence is to work with them one-on-one.
Lastly, it is common for owners of multiple dogs to feel a little sad about the prospect of all this one-on-one work. That’s understandable and I can totally relate—we got multiple dogs because we enjoy the dynamic of the dogs together. I want to let you in on a little secret: improving your one-on-one relationship with each dog actually enhances the time you all spend together. Strong individual relationships give your dogs more confidence and clarity in their skill set and role, improve your communication, and cultivate a more balanced state of mind. All of these benefits dramatically improve your time together as a pack!
