Gracie is such an awesome dog that I thought, “If one is good, two will be better.”
And while that’s true for the most part, I totally underestimated the amount of work that goes into having more than one dog.
I had idyllic visions of double the love, double the smooches and fun. But was I was ridiculously unprepared for are the rules and hierarchy that goes into having more than one dog.
On their own, Gracie and Penny are sweet, loving pooches full of kisses and snuggles. And even together they’re pretty awesome. Most of the time. But sometimes they’re like oil and water. They’ve been locked in a tug-of-war over who the alpha bitch is. Clearly, I haven’t fully established myself as such yet or they wouldn’t be posturing for position.
I’ve tried not to favor one over the other. I didn’t want Gracie to feel threatened by the new puppy so I’d give her more head rubs and belly scratches than I gave Penny. Then I’d feel bad, like I was neglecting Penny and I’d play with her a little more.
The biggest mistake I’ve made is feeding them together. I do it mostly because when I feed Gracie first Penny barks her head off and at 7:00 a.m. I’m sure the neighbors want to throttle her. So in the interest of a little quiet—because I haven’t figured out how to stop the damn barking yet—I just feed them together.
And THAT my friends is how you fuck up the pack.
Feeding them together seems to have given Penny the sense that the Alpha position was open for the taking. Except Gracie isn’t really giving it up so easily. So there’s been lots of growling at the food dishes lately.
Tonight it escalated.
They both had their faces in their bowls, lapping away at their food, and then the growling started. Penny took a peek to see what was left in Gracie’s dish and Gracie growled. Penny shoved her own face back into her bowl until Gracie decided to check out Penny’s dish. Before I knew it, they’re at each other. It broke up as quickly as it started and there was no damage. Except to my fragile little heart.
Later tonight both dogs had their own bones but Penny wanted Gracie’s and Gracie wanted Penny’s. They’ll usually do a swap once or twice, but somehow Penny ended up hoarding both bones. Gracie walked over to her and grabbed one and they were fine. But then Penny got up and stood over Gracie and growled at her. I told her “No” and she moved away. But then Penny moved around to the other side of the coffee table and I saw her eying Gracie—cocking her head back and forth checking things out. Gracie noticed too, because before I knew it, she leapt up and the two of them were in a pretty hardcore dog fight. They were locked into each other.
I panicked and freaked out, which is what you always want to do in that situation (ehem) and started to yell at them to break it up. Um, yeah, because their ancient instincts are totally programmed to stop fighting when hysterical women scream.
Then I did the one thing that all the dog trainers tell you never to do. I reached in and grabbed the first collar I could find in tangle of white hair and tried to pull them apart. Fortunately, I didn’t get bit. Bill heard the commotion and came out and helped me pull them apart. We put Gracie in our room and Penny in her crate.
After checking around I found out this is pretty normal. At some point one dog will challenge the status quo. Penny is bigger than Gracie so she’s probably feeling like a bad-ass. Plus, my amateur dog owner behavior totally left the door open for her to do that.
Neither of the dogs are injured. Thank GOD. But now I have to really work to keep the peace around here. I have to stop pretending that this is going to be some kind of dog utopia and everyone is just going to get along. Because as sweet and pretty as they are, they still have their wolf instincts and they’ll fight if they feel challenged.
I guess I’ve got to get all Caesar Milan on them and become the Pack Leader.
Anyone else out there have multiple dogs? Has this happened to you?
Welcome to multi-dog households. They both sound fairly dominant, which isn’t really a bad thing. What seems to work in my house (we have four male dogs) is to figure out who appears to be the alpha and then cultivate that. That dog gets fed first, gets to sleep in the bed, gets more (not a lot more) attention, etc. A couple of things that work for us are working on the waiting for the food bowl and letting the alpha start first and also door manners. Make both dogs wait at the door before they go out. YOU always go out or in first. You’re going to have to be the alpha, as much as it kind of sucks. Lots of obedience training helps as that causes both of them to see you in the leadership position. And we still have plenty of scuffles in our house too. I always separate them when they have some kind of valuable toy like a marrow bone or rawhide. Sometimes prevention is the only answer. Good luck!
Thank you for all the great advice! This week I started to work on making them wait at the door, going in and out. Our three-year-old does it—or at least she used to until the puppy came along—and now I’m getting in the habit of making the puppy wait too. It takes a lot of patience to make it happen, though. But I guess that’s the key.
We had two male dogs and there were some scuffles from time to time but mostly they got along. They always realized that my husband was the pack leader though and I am positive that definitely helped keep the bickering to a minimum. You have to establish that you are running the show and not let them get the idea that it is one of them. We always made our dogs sit quietly before they could eat or get a treat. We also made them stand at the door and wait for us quietly when they wanted to go out. It was hard for the first year and then they get used to knowing that they aren’t the top dog and settle down. At least they did in our case. Eventually the dogs would eat out of the same bowl and chew their bones quietly laying right next to each other – all without fusings or fighting.
I’m working on the sit quietly at the door thing, but the quietly part isn’t kicking in yet. And one will sit but by the time I get the other to sit, the first one is up and moving again. There must be an art to training two dogs at once.
They’re both sweet dogs—it’s just going to take a little time.
when my dogs get into…um…”disagreements” it kills me. i guess i’m lucky because while our older dog ivan can be a pushy little guy, our younger dog dash is laid back, go with the flow, “sure you can have that bone even though i was chewing it.” so if ivan picks a fight, dash doesn’t fight back, and things don’t escalate.
i’ve found that being as structured as possible with ivan, who needs it, (and dashy who doesn’t but we make him do it anyway) he is less inclined to try and chomp his brother. so we make them sit before dinner, or they go out. i make them do tricks for treats, they have to be invited up on the furniture etc etc.
glad no one got hurt! good luck with your fluffy puperonies!!!
Structure seems to be the key with the puppy. She’s almost 7 months old, so it’s like dealing with a 13-year-old girl—she’s a bossy know-it-all who doesn’t listen. I took both of them for a long (and long-overdue) walk last night and that has calmed them down considerably. I guess Casar Millan is right—exercise, discipline and then affection.
I like Victoria Stillwell on “It’s Me or the Dog” more than Cesar. He has the right idea but his methods are too harsh for me. Her methods seem to work REALLY well and don’t involve a lot of harsh corrections. Or try the book “Good Owners, Great Dogs” by Brian Kilcommons.
I got two puppies at the same time, ten years ago. A three month old pug and a two month old Boston Terrier. I must have been out of my mind, and yes, training two at once is HARD. I soon realized though that if they weren’t trained it was going to be even worse. They’re still really obedient, even though one is a spoiled couch potato and one is a grumpy old man now.
I’ve never seen her show, but just noticed it on the guide. I’ll check her out. Cesar is definitely a little more harsh. In fact, every trainer I’ve ever gone to, with the exception of the girl I took Penny to at PetSmart, has used the choke chain method of correction. The first time I had to make a correction on Callie, our first Samoyed, I literally broke down in tears. I don’t know if you ever saw “The Horse Whisperer” but to me, it was like that.
I’ll check out that book because we have a lot of work over here!