Multiple Dog Household Owners: How often do you let your dogs interact?
Portia and Ninja are together at all times, except for when we go out for more than 1 hour, we crate them seperately, but next to eachother.
When they are not in their crates they are out free to roam together throughout the house. When we sleep, Ninja sleeps under the bed and Portia sleeps on the bed. I would say they are with eachother or able to interact with eachother 95% of the time.
Ninja and Portia have never been in a fight or scruffle. Ninja will usually correct Portia and Portia will either stop or keep egging him on. A couple times I will have to say "knock it off!" or "be nice!"...but they get along together wonderfully for the most part.
I am curious if it is only me who lets her dogs be together all the time without a worry, or if this is the norm.
Obviously dogs who live in the same household that don't get along are usually seperated for most of the time, if not all the time....but that is a different story.
When they are not in their crates they are out free to roam together throughout the house. When we sleep, Ninja sleeps under the bed and Portia sleeps on the bed. I would say they are with eachother or able to interact with eachother 95% of the time.
Ninja and Portia have never been in a fight or scruffle. Ninja will usually correct Portia and Portia will either stop or keep egging him on. A couple times I will have to say "knock it off!" or "be nice!"...but they get along together wonderfully for the most part.
I am curious if it is only me who lets her dogs be together all the time without a worry, or if this is the norm.
Obviously dogs who live in the same household that don't get along are usually seperated for most of the time, if not all the time....but that is a different story.
Comments
We also had a doberman and a Sheltie too and they was never crate trained.
When we are home our dogs are together, they have access to the yard, or the house, as well as us. They choose if they want to be in the office sleeping by us, in the living room on the couch, or outside playing.
There are some cases where we may need to keep one separate, and when that is the case we will rotate them with the dogs they can be with between the house, the office and the various gated areas in our yard - this type of thing is rare for us tho [like during heats or if a pup is injured].
We do try to keep the Shiba inside with us and not out on their own because they can get trampled by the Akita and BIG L pretty easily - but they just chill with us in the office [in other word they are not crated or anything].
When we go to bed or leave the house "the wiggles" (Lani and Fuji) and Hilo are left free in the house and the rest of the pups are crated - Loa and Kona are crated together [when Loa is not in heat] and Maui and Kaia are always crated together.
Eventually Luytiy will have free access to the yard via a dog door and will be left free [to be in the house or outside] at night and when we are not here [so he can guard the entire property]. At that time we may start gating the Akita in the office or crating them - they are pretty chill and don't rally care they just want to be able to great us and wiggle butt like crazies.
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I would like my dogs to want to interact with me and get attached to me first. Afterwards, fending off any anxiety and pent up energy through working obedience/play sessions and a long, tiring walk. I don't mind my dogs playing together. Kei-kun and Kotomi or Kei-kun and Lynx. As it'll still be a while before I allow Lynx to intereact with Kotomi, at least another month or two. I want Lynx to accept her as a Packmate and not treat her as a "board-in" dog.
While my dogs do spend most of their time together, I do not let them interact so much now.
I'm more focused on their training, I kinda just want them to ignore each other.
Give me a couple more years to get some more training on them and I'll start letting the 3 run around together.
I find that my dogs (present and past) do much better with one another when I have some kind of Obedience on them.
This is how I earn respect from them and will be better able to "control" pack ongoings.
Once I have an established pack and control on all dogs, I'm sure I'll start allowing them to play with any new dog to the pack almost right away. By then I'll have boundaries and they'll be more experienced on how to deal with new additons.
Unless it's a "board-in" dog, my dogs will eventually have to "get along" with one another.
They don't have to like each other. However, they do have to respect each other's space.
This will come with time, training and experience.
The cats for example...they don't like the dogs, they don't need to interact with them then. I need to start enforcing the "don't antagonish the cats" rule (kittys have lost the tolerance for the dogs) <--- tried to let them duke it out themselves but that theory isn't working.
My cats need to feel comfortable and be able to roam around the house and not worry about any of the dogs coming up to pester them. If one of the cats wishes to interact, fine but it will be by cat's choice. They do just fine "putting the dogs in their place" for the most part but they shouldn't have to deal with this.
Tis not so bad with 2 dogs, but anymore then that...you start having extra "rules" and set more "boundaries". At least with the dogs I have. I tend to be drawn to the more "over the top, high drive" kind -grins-.
Corina - I find your method interesting..mainly because you are the only one
I understand forming a bond and trust with a new dog is important...but that could be accomplished in a matter of weeks or months. But years???
I think that interacting with dogs of the household should be on a regular basis...In a way, I think that they need to be with eachother to develop boundaries for themselves. What is accepted and when enough is enough. Without this, I think it may be more complicated in the future when the dogs are older. It's sort of the opposite of socialization. Keeping a dog away from another dog or wanting them to ignore eachother doesn't teach them proper socialization skills with eachother. IE: how to greet, when to back off, when to correct, etc.
I think it is much easier to integrate a puppy into a household rather than an adult. Puppies need growls and corrections from the older dog to learn how to play properly and learn boundaries. I think taking this away would lead to an over-confident dog with no manners. Also, you mention that your dogs don't have to like eachother but they have to respect eachother's space. Don't you think that this would be covered in the process of interacting with eachother? The human can't do all the work..we don't understand dog behavior completely and aren't in total control all the time...Sometimes we are not always paying attention when things happen, so how could we properly control the situation without knowing what happened? IE: When I visited the Anderson Pack, Hilo and Ahi got into a little argument. Brad nor I (who was taping) saw what happened because it was so fast, but Ahi pinned Hilo to the ground. Brad put Ahi in a time out and we went over the tape, only to find out that Hilo got very close to Ahi's eye with his teeth (Hilo has VERY sharp teeth) and therefor she corrected him. So, did Ahi deserve the time out? Even though it was Hilo who was over-excited and knicked her in the face? Or was it a proper correction that Hilo deserved?
Of course when dogs are trained or have some obedience knowledge it is easier to control them in situations and it gives the human more confidence, but I don't know if i'd go as far as keeping them seperated until each one is up to par on training. I think exercising and training together is a great time to bond with eachother too. We always walk them together and we like to train them together as well. Like they are doing a group effort and being rewarded together. Which also shows that being around eachother and listening to the human equals praise and treats. Don't get me wrong, I think each dog deserves their special time with their human and training by themselves...but I still think they should be able to interact with eachother on a regular basis. Whether its walking together, doing obedience commands together, or just chilling out in the same room.
As for "Established Pack" - what do you mean by that? How would your pack be established? Do you mean established with all the dogs knowing and respecting you as the pack leader and slowly learning to accept eachother as packmates?
To me, keeping all the dogs seperated for a couple years leads me to think that they aren't being properly socialized with eachother and are in fact their own pack. You and Lynx (Pack 1), You and Kei (Pack 2) You and Kotomi (Pack 3). Since they don't have much interaction with eachother, I would think they wouldn't even see eachother as packmates, but just as another dog. I think that dogs need time to bond with eachother just as much as a human needs to bond with the dog. They need to learn to trust eachother and respect eachother through interaction. I dont' think any type of one on one training or human can accomplish that between the dogs, they have to sort it out themselves.
These are just my thoughts and my opinions, Of course you know I don't have any formal experience, but this is just what makes sense to me. I'm eager to hear your thoughts and explanations as well as everyone else.
I spend weekends here and there at a farm animal sanctuary. They have herding dogs for their grazing livestock who are not treated like house dogs, and at first I was bothered by it, since it is an animal sanctuary and these were not treated like beloved pets, but they were rescued working dogs that had protection, food, training and a job to do. They were working dogs, not house dogs. But they have 3 pampered house dogs as well that do not interact with the herders. It was hard for me to get my head around it because I work with dogs in my home and mold rescue dogs into house pets, so I was coming from a completely different mentality.
I think my two, Tsuki and Kitsune, are an established pack of house dogs. They are altered adult dogs and are always together, we do not separate them for any amount of time, unless we need to crate them for short periods of time. They walk together, they do basic obedience training together, they play with us together (lots of tug-o-war!), they eat together, and more often than not they will sleep together. We bring in fosters now and then but I don't consider them an established pack member until I can trust them all completely while unattended. Hachi became an established pack member while she was here, I would leave for work leaving them all out together unattended and there was never an incident more than petty destruction of toys or small objects.
I think one needs to determine their expectations for their pack - are they house dogs, or working dogs, or a breeding pair, etc, to determine the appropriate interaction structure. Altered house dogs that successfully get along should be allowed to interact as much as possible for the reasons you stated, Romi. Dog-dog communication and interaction can never be matched by human interaction alone, especially when your expectation is to have a multi dog household of pet dogs.
I know a lost of people will diasagree with me on this one, but we pretty much let our foster dogs "choose" if they want to be crated. 95% of the time these are puppy mill survivors. They have lived in small terrible wire cages their entire lives. If when we get them they use their crate as their refuge and feel comfortable in it, then it is all theirs. However, most of the girls we have gotten have HATED the crate. So we do not force them into them.
I am not nearly as structured as a lot of you
Do you guys feel working dogs and/or "high drive" dog should be separated from non-working [aka "house dogs"] dogs?
Also, how does Obedience Training help dogs interact properly with each other? Isn't Obedience Training for teaching a dog how to interact with humans?
Also, other than the obvious [unwanted breedings], why would altered dogs differ from unaltered dogs in the way they coexist as a family unit [aka "pack"]?
I'm not being argumentative, I'm just interested in hearing your reasoning and thoughts.
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The only time I ever get involved with my dog’s behavior toward one another at this point is if they are all out fighting, where if there is no intervention from me, one of them could be injured. I can honestly say that the less I intervene when they “communicate” with each other, the smoother things go. Does this make any sense to anyone?
At night, we used to be very strict about crating Ryu except for the weekends. However, when we got Chloe, we started letting the both of them sleep on the bed. With Roxy, we are trying to get back into crating but it's not going well. I am introducing her to it slowly during the day during feeding times and when I need to run an errand, go to the gym, etc. Eventually, we need to get them back into their crates at night. <~~~ says my husband, Tim lol
I will post BC spam at the end of the day I promise!!
Jen, why do you think intact dogs need structured separation? Yes, I completely agree that its necessary when females are in heat. But why the other 10 or 11 months of the year? I'm pretty squarely in agreement with Romi here. I believe the more dogs interact with each other the better the pack bond becomes. Further, especially with puppies, they can learn a LOT from their older pack members. I was absolutely shocked when I took Lucy and Joey to meet Jessica, Jay, and Miko. Joey showed behaviors I had never seen in him before, correcting Miko for overly rambunctious puppy antics. These were things that Joey has been on the receiving end of countless times, but NEVER before had he given them out. I have no evidence for this, but I feel pretty strongly that he learned those behaviors from Lucy.
I don't trust Lucy and Joey 100% to be together unsupervised yet. The main motivation for me is that Joey doesn't take no for an answer when he wants to play with Lucy and she can get pretty pissed off after a while. Whenever someone is home, Lucy and Joey are out and interacting each other. When I'm gone, they are crated next to each other.
Kelly - Congrats on the new border collie! We need spam! I totally agree with you about letting dogs handles things themselves...of course to a certain extent as you mentioned. When I brought in Hanzo, we were totally not ready. And we over-reacted and got very nervous and anxious whenever Hanzo and Ninja were together. Especially when we would hear Ninja growl...we did the same and would try to correct him instead of re-directing him and that just made things 10x worse.
I know that when introducing a new dog to a multi-dog household it can take a week or months depending on the temperments of each dog in the household...but it only makes sense to get them to live together peacefully, they need to interact with eachother to establish a bond. It takes time and consistently like most things regarding dog behavior, but I don't see why anyone would wait to start the interaction.
Now with your dogs and big L/Masha, I understand why they SHOULD be together, since they are who the OC's are to regard as their family.
I don't think obedience training has anything to do with dog-dog interactions - I am interested in hearing Corina's opinion on this. We train our dogs individually and with one another to reduce reactivity near high valued items (we use stinky high valued treats when training only).
Again, in my very limited experience, I've found more tensions to exist between altered and unaltered dogs, especially of the same sex, then with unaltered dogs of the same sex. Just in my home, with my dogs from various backgrounds and issues to be addressed, I wouldn't allow an unaltered adult dog interact freely without constant supervision from myself - mostly for potential behavioral issues.
I don't have experience with starting dogs from pups and building a pack from it, so I'm not sure in which ways it would differ from introducing adult dogs to one another while one is (or isn't) intact.
With your dogs, Brad, from the images and videos you show us, there seems to be very little tensions between your intact dogs - which is awesome! But when one goes into heat, are there any changes in behaviors/tensions/reactivity between dogs of the same sex?
Thats all I got! Sorry if it sounded one sided or know-it-all, I didn't intend to, its just all from limited personal experience and observation.
What I meant by a “working” police or schutzhund dog is a dog who is competing or training to compete in the sport of schutzhund, or actively working on the street with a police officer. If I had a “working” dog that was trained to bite and only let go on verbal command by a human being, which schutzhund dogs are trained to do, I would not allow them to be loose in the house or outside with other dogs, where they can get out of your sight. If you control the working dogs environment to the point where it is only trained to do it’s work, such as tracking, or narcotics detection, NOT things like shake paw or roll over or how to “get along” with other dogs, it will probably be a better worker, and someone who has aquired a dog for work or to win in protection sports will sometimes do this. If you only feed the dog when it’s working, it will put 100% of itself into the work, on one hand to survive, on the other because dogs like rewards, just like we like our paychecks.
A dog that is trained in schutzhund or police bitework uses prey drive and defensive drive. I think that a dog that is rewarded for using prey drive can spill over into regular dog-dog interactions.
Romi - I think I both "over-socialized" and "under-socialized" Lynx.
"over-socialized" meaning I "forced" her past her threshold to interact with certain dogs that she really didn't want to have anything to do with, which made Lynx uneasy and gave her a sense of insecurity.
"under-socialized" meaning "at random, not consistent". When she came into heat I "removed" her from the dog park (it was actually a nice small one and we knew all the owners and their dogs, so it was okay to visit and play). We actually then stopped going for a few months (maybe for about 3).
Then I brought her back to that same dog park. She was fine with the dogs she grew up with but didn't care so much for new dogs. Hey, she's allowed to "pick and choose her friends". She just went into "avoidence" when a new dog tried to interact with her, acting as if she didn't notice that other dog. Then somebody was playing with a toy with their dog and Lynx got ahold of it. I took the toy back and gave it to the man, telling him, "Hey, my dog is possessive of toys can you please put it away." Lynx thought I still had the toy, then that new dog who has been trying to play with her came up behind her and she "yelled" at that other dog.
It was startling, the first time I've ever heard Lynx "tell" another dog off. Nobody was hurt, she didn't do anything except make these aweful noises. She didn't know when to stop though. One quick correction is fine but she kept "yelling". I had to pull her away from that other dog and I put her in a "down" and then "released" her when she was calm. She was content to just ignore that new dog, that idiot of a man still played with that toy with his dog. Lynx then "stole" it and just layed down chewing on it. That did it for me though, as an inexperienced handler I never took her back again after that day, thinking it might become a liability. If I didn't know how to deal with it completely, I thought it better to remove her from that kind of a situation all together.
That was when she was a year old.
The following year, I allowed her to roam a few times with a pack made up of Malinois from a few of my other friend dog trainers. We just let our dogs out to play and they were fine.
When I worked for the German Shepherd breeder, I use to let her play with the older pups all the time. Then one of her playmates, a male, had left and then came back a few months later but he got BIG. I'm not sure Lynx recognized him at all because she was so concerned about his size and would not play. Then I just kinda stopped throwing her in with the other dogs. I brought out an 8 week old pup for her to interact with but she just yelled at the pup and ran off, wasn't interested.
I think after about a year of age she became possessive of space, her "bubble". I never worried about it before, but I have to watch out for it now. She doesn't tolerate other dogs getting into her face. So, for a while the only other dog I could allow her to play with was Malachai, my friend's Malinois. He's an oversized Mali, but since they lived together she just got "used" to him and they played just fine.
Lynx is a very high drive dog, she comes on strong and tends to retain a lot of anxiety. I'm gonna make mistakes, this is my first Malinois and she is NOT a beginner dog by any means. This is a complete working dog that I've only recently truely begun to understand. Malinois are dogs that need CONSTANT socialization. I figured though that "no socialization" is much better then "bad experiences during socialization". It's easier "to train" then to "fix" bad training.
Lynx is a good dog, she is very pack oriented. I know she loves other dogs and wants to play with them. The only "problem" is that she is "over the top" in drive. And she is "unfair" with her corrections because she doesn't know when to stop them. She comes on too strong at times, which I think can be very traumatizing to a puppy. Having Obedience on her has helped TREMEOUSLY with everything. However her Obedience still isn't 100%, especially when she is not paying attention (too caught up in drive = dog not thinking clearly). She can be a "bully" and does love to "terrorize" for fun, so I have to watch out for this impish behavior.
I find that with her, introductions are best AFTER the "newness" of the new dog wears off. Even after working off any anxiety, if there's a new dog to greet, she suddenly has "regenerated energy". However, given time she becomes "immune" and doesn't come on as strong because she "knows" the new dog now. You know, things are more exciting when they are new...then when they start becoming apart of your everyday life, it's not so fascinating anymore.
Any "Snarkiness" attitude is her way of "telling" other dogs, "hey, this is my space, stay out of it". When she wants to interact she'll invade your bubble! Little brat, lol.
When I get more Obedience on the Shikoku, it'll make things easier for me -grins-. That's how I establish order in my pack. Since I'll be able to "call my dogs off" and "away" from the other dog, reguardless of the situation. It just makes things easy I don't think there is any right or wrong way of dealing with a pack of dogs (assuming you are being fair to the dogs). And perhaps the very reason we humans may not completely understand "the pack ways of domestic dogs" is mainly because each household has a different set of rules and a different method of how their particular pack works. So either the humans arrange their pack or the very dogs within make their own set of rules that each member obides by. Remember, just like people, not every dog is the same.
I'm a novice dog trainer right now, so naturally I'm gonna make mistakes and "screw" up my first few dogs before I get things right <-- everybody does, after all you got to start somewhere. And I think my dogs have it pretty good, I don't think I've messed them up too horribly just yet -grins-.
Someday I hope to be an expert dog trainer but this only comes with years of experience with many dogs of all kinds, temperments, breeds, mixes, sizes and so forth. Both dogs of my very own and other people's dogs.
I'm kinda curious to find out what I will think in 10 years from now, reflecting back. I've had about 4 solid years of working with dogs (not counting the random pet dogs before I entered the "dog scene"). Already my view is completely different from when I got suckered into it, lol. My views have changed since even 2 years ago and they will continue to change as I gain more experience. Some things will stay the same though. I will still continue to treat each of my dogs as an individual, love them and train them to be the best they can be to the best of my capability.
So this is what works for me.
The herd/guard dogs at the sanctuary have one another (there are two) and they don't interact with the house dogs, no. Indra does this because the working dogs can (and have) gotten comfy on the couch or used to certain luxuries that she feels takes away from their work ethic. She has a St Bernard that was a herd/guard that she let indoors and now he's a pet with no work ethic and lives with two other dogs as house dogs, so her two pyr/collie mixes are strictly working 'goat dogs'. I consider Pad and Tilly the goat dogs to be real working dogs.
Also, like I mentioned above - besides the need to prevent unwanted breedings, in my experience intact dogs cause behavioral issues within an unestablished pack, so that is why I would separate until they are speutered or otherwise.
**Corina, thats an interesting explanation - and thats the main thing - all dogs, all humans and all packs are different, we're all coming to this with different experiences and mindsets. Removing yourself from your own pack mentality allows you to understand others, like with me and Indra's Pad and Tilly, I understand it now, even if I don't know if i would be able to have two "sets" of dogs.
Asking yourself what your expectation is and how to incorporate that logistically with your dogs is what makes it work. Thanks for the insight!
This is a long one too...
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First off - Jen and Corina - Please understand my questions directed at you were for my own education and not out of judgement or disagreement.
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Before I write my comments I want to make a few things clear:
1 - I have never owned or worked with [or even been around] working schutzhund trained dogs.
2 - I consider 1/2 my dogs to be "weekend workers" or "part-time workers" - they work with us on the weekends and live as pets during the week.
3 - I consider Masha, Kona, and Luytiy to be true working dogs - on the job everyday.
4 - Jen and I are home with our dogs almost 24/7, this gives us a unique situation - one where we can allow our dogs to be free(er) than most.
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I don't think any of us have dogs that work on the level a police or rescue dog works, meaning they don't work everyday for most of the day. In that type of situation [I think Kelly was basically saying this too] I don't feel it matters whether or not the dogs are able to socialize with other dogs at the end of their long work day. Their anxiety and drive has been expelled from a full day of work.
Since we [meaning us forum members] don't have [full-time] police/rescue dogs, that are working everyday and all-day, and we do have a mix of different breeds and drive-level dogs I would think it would be in our interest [and our dogs] to allow our dogs to socialize as much as possible from the very beginning. Allowing your dogs to interact and socializing on their level will give them an outlet for all that anxiety and drive that causes them [potentially] to have issues with other dogs or in a group - that is basically what socialization is.
This is just my philosophy and by no means the correct or incorrect way to go about owning a group of dogs.
Also, having given my philosophy above, I do want to point out that in many cases "the damage is already done" and [as Corina pointed out] it would take a huge amount of work to correct a learned behavior than it would to train a new behavior. So, in other words, if you have had a dog that has been kenneled/crated for most of its life it would not be wise to just through your dog into a social situation and expect them to flourish. It is VERY important, as dog owners, that we not set our dogs up to fail.
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I agree so much with what Kelly said about her “hands-off” approach and her story mirrors Jen and my story with how we have evolved in our keeping of our dogs. We too were control freaks [and still are but it shows in a different way] about how our dogs interact with each other but through experience, tolerance, patience, and faith in our dogs ability to be dogs [very social animals] we have learned to focus our control on other aspects of our dogs and not so much on controlling their every interaction and move. Honestly, this was a VERY hard leap of faith [pun intended] to make for us since we came from a very small condo with very little time that our dogs were not in our direct line of sight.
We too have seen a very reactive dog [Maui] or a very high-drive dog [Ahi] go from being an issue to a nice balanced dog once they experienced living with a pack for a long period - but it took a ton of time and work to get to that point. Now Maui really doesn't care about the addition of new dogs and has learned to correct other dogs appropriately, and Ahi is our ambassador for new pups and young dogs - she has seen a few dogs come into her pack in her short time [lol].
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Jen - You bring up an interesting point about the "goat dogs" and how they became lazy once allowed to be in the house. This is exactly why I was asking you to give more info. Our situation with Luytiy is very different from most LGD situation and we are kinda "pushing it" [as many have told us] with his "job". So we are constantly trying to figure out the best way to get him to be "on the job" and with his pack at the same time, but with out him becoming a couch potato like our Akita are [lol]. It's an interesting struggle, and I honestly kinda enjoy the challenge.
As for your question regarding altered and unaltered dogs living in a family. I am slowly piecing together my philosophy on this, but it's a work in progress [one that will probably last my whole life]. As of now, this is my personal philosophy on the subject...
Neutering a male reduces testosterone, this helps to calm a lot of "aggressive" behaviors. Fixing a female, on the other hand, raises their testosterone and therefore increases her "aggressive" behaviors. Male dogs challenge, guard, and behave fairly differently from females within a "pack" so it is my opinion that altering the dogs can cause some added behavioral issues and can make it difficult to mix altered and unaltered dogs. A group of altered dogs or a group of unaltered dogs seems to "mesh" better together - but I don't feel it is something that can't be over come and I feel that unless you are going to breed you should alter your animals as soon as possible.
A lot of the issues that we hear about in the dog world [dog-to-dog, *NOT* dog-to-human] with unaltered dogs is a combo problem, IMHO. There are actually 2 issues at work:
1 - Most of the time breeders [or people who have unaltered dogs] keep their dogs separate and therefore they are under-socialized.
2 - Like any resource, a dog will guard his [perceived] female when she is in season [she is a resource at that time] - add some extra testosterone from chemical reaction triggered by her pheromones and you have a pretty hectic situation.
So, if you have very socialized unaltered dogs, you only really need to worry about having issues when a female comes into season. That is when you must separate all the male dogs and this time is when you have the highest risk for a [true] fight. Once the female is passed the heat [and assuming you didn't allow the dogs to fight], it's like a switch - no more resource [aka the bitch] guarding.
In your specific situation, unfortunately, I don't think you would ever be able to do this type of thing since you are dealing with rescue dogs and therefore don't have their full history. So, in your case, I would mos def alter every dog that comes into your pack, male or female. [I know you know that tho]
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[Ironically, while I typed this Loa just got her ass handed to her by Kona - arguing over a piece of wood to chew on out in the yard. No blood or anything, just a shocked Loa.]
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(I didn't think you asked to be judgmental or otherwise, Brad! But thanks!)
I am fascinated with the pack you have built, Brad, with younger and older dogs, smaller and larger dogs, intact and altered dogs, male and female. You and Jen have done a tremendous job of creating a peaceful atmosphere it seems between them all after initial introductions, etc. Like you said, since all the dogs I work with are rescues, it just seems hard for me to get my head around unaltered dogs just coexisting like that with no tensions or issues.
Which, Dave, I hope I answered your question here and there - from my head's logic only, I have never felt comfortable letting unaltered dogs freely interact without my constant supervision because when I bring in a rescue, I immediately aim to keep everyone safe and set them all up for success. The dult unaltered males that I've dealt with (in my home and at the shelter) are chumps more often than not, so off go the nads before I let them interact with the other dogs, especially the other males they are to share space with. And after the initial recovery period for a spay, I've never had a female get more aggressive, so I believe spaying also helps quell whatever issues may or may not arise from doing otherwise in the end. Because I've really only had dogs with issues in my home, I believe that unaltered dogs should have a structured interaction and structured separation pattern for safety within a newly configured 'pack'.
This is how the shelter manager works her dog groups, too. When we let dogs into the runs and common play areas, its a strict selection process of who's altered, who isn't - not for unwanted breedings but more so for the behavioral issues that more often than not arise.
But in a case like Brad and Jen's, I can see the success they created for their dogs in their pack through the "free range" structure for their altered and unaltered dogs. And like I said, its just truly fascinating to me!
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I'll be interested to see how you keep Luytiy and Masha on the job, too, since that couch of yours looks like a comfy napping spot!! Tink the St Bernard is one lazy, "retired" working dog now! Everytime I'm at Indra's, this dog is sunning on the patio with another dog or cat or napping on a couch, I can't even imagine what he would have been like as a working dog!!!
Wow. Thanks guys!
I remember for a while Kona was taught to chase birds of the property. Don't know if he's still doing that though. ~
Masha = Predator control & property guard [in training]. Also Masha will eventually be a trail/camping protection dog too.
Kona = Trail dog, pack dog, and property alarm dog.
Ahi = If Ahi wasn't [always] injured she would fall into the same categories as Kona.
*We first put our names on the list for Masha to groom her into a predator control solution. Also as people started to be attacked while hiking more frequently in our area we decided we need a pair of COs so that we could take one hiking with us for protection and leave one here to control the predators. So as our predator issues got worse we realised we needed an immediate solution, that is why we got Luytiy. We added the COs to our family strictly for working needs. Luytiy was our [more or less] "turn key" solution to guarding our property and our smaller more vulnerable pups from predation ASAP while Masha will be a "work in progress" for several years.
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Brad, [ I'd hate to continue this offtopicness ;p ] but I have to ask; why would Ahi have similar duties as Kona, but not Loa?
Loa has a high prey drive, but shows little interest in guarding anything and didn't take to hiking/packing very strongly. She is, however, a great mushing dog.
I consider Loa to have more of a pet/companion temperament while Ahi has a strong working temperament.
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