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is the puppy training podcast episode number 26. Multiple dog households. This podcast is for those looking to train their own dog, whether as a family, companions, service or therapy dog. And I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the puppy training podcasts, and I'm your host. Amy Jensen. Hi, everyone. How's your day going? Had a great weekend. It's beautiful weather here in northern Utah. I took boots to a college soccer game over the weekend. We were able to door dash our dinner, which was amazing. We had somebody just deliver that food to us right at the field. And then we're able to do some service dog training at the same time. So my two daughters came with me. My husband was helping coach, and it was just a really fun time. I was able to get some loose leash walking in with boots. We practiced, say High, which is a command that tells him he can go up to somebody and they're welcome to pet him. We also were able to work around some other dogs because some other people brought their dogs as well, and it was just good to get him out and about and do things together. So I hope you're having a wonderful Monday. Ah, quick shoutout to a client whose puppy came home Saturday. Xenia, I know you've been keeping me posted on the progress of that. And I'm super excited that you're finally have your puppy and you're able to start training. So good luck this week. I know you can do this the first week. You guys is usually the hardest. Sometimes you have lack of sleep. Depends on how much great training your puppies had before they came home to you. But I know you can do this. You have been preparing for this and you're ready. So good luck this week. I'm thinking about you also. Rachel, thank you for posting videos of you training your three dogs. I was so happy to see that video on the stay in your yard. I love your reds videos. I love that you send me your progress and how your puppies doing. I like to stay up to date on how I can best help you. So the topic that I've picked for today actually came inspired by Rachel because of the multiple dog household. I do get questions about how to train dogs together, how to introduce a new puppy to an older dog, et cetera. So today I want to cover just a few quick things about this. I want to talk number one about introducing a new puppy. How do we do that? And how do we manage the environment where we now have multiple dogs living together and then also talk about training? Do I training them separately? Do I train them together and what our best practices there? So let's talk about introducing a new puppy and the management that goes along with it. I recommend separating the puppy and the dog when they've initially see each other, So I like to use a gate or an exercise pen. Often times I'll put the puppy in the pen, and the older dog could be outside the pen. Then they're able to move around and sniff each other's smell each other, but not necessarily touch each other. So then you can really get a good idea of how the older dog is gonna handle this and how the younger dog is handling it just by observing their body language If you're a member of my program, go to the live page and check out the canine coaching on body language there. I describe in detail the kind of body language that we're looking for when we know that our puppy is happier when our dog is happy and relaxed. So if you want more information, check that out That's available to you. So once your puppy and your older dog have met and you feel comfortable about getting them together, I would take the puppy out of the exercise pen and let interact with your older dog. No, I would manage that very closely if you need to split them with your body to step in between them. You are welcome to do that, maybe pick up the puppy if needed. But hopefully things go well and the dogs greet and everything's fine. Now you will want to manage the situation in your home, recognizing that you're older dogs been living there, and he might view things as hiss. So maybe the food bullets his Or maybe his where his crate is, or his dog bed. You know, those things are Maybe that dog might do a little bit of guarding, so we want to be aware of that and manage as best as we can. Now. I recommend feeding my puppy and my older dog and separate spaces Number one. It just prevents them from eating each other's food. And hopefully they're They're nice about their food bowls, but that would also prevent any kind of guarding behavior. So I put my dogs and their crates to eat their meals. Then there's no issue of eating the other's food or that kind of thing. Um, I also recommend that we checked to see if both dogs air happy, went out together. Plane. So how I do this is let's say that the older dog and the younger dog are wrestling or playing, and they're engaging in just good dog to dog play if I feel like one is being overwhelmed by the other, and this could go either direction. Sometimes we have an elderly dog who's overwhelmed by the energy of the young puppy, and sometimes we have a young puppy who's overwhelmed by maybe the size of our older doc, where our dog with already lives with us. So what I like to do is put them both on leash. I get a helper and one person takes the dog to the other side of the room, and I hold the puppy on this side of the room. And then whichever puppy or dog I feel like is being picked on. Maybe I'm like, Man, that puppy keeps getting pinned to the floor, and I don't know that he's having fun. Is he having fun? How do I tell then? I simply release the puppies first from being unleash. If the puppy goes directly back to the other dog and wants to initiate play, then I can know that the dog is having fun. So if you're worried that one of the dogs is not having a good time, simply separate them for a minute or two, unleash and then release the dog that you feel like, maybe is the one getting picked on and again it could be either way the older dog or the new puppy let them go first and see if they go back for more play. And if they're they run back to the other dog and say, Hey, let's keep playing, then they're having a good time. And as long as they're having a good time. They're welcome to play now with multiple dog households. I do manage the play. So if it gets too rough for two, rambunctious or the growling escalates or, you know the rate at which their mounting and biting each other gets really escalated. I prevent that from going any further into, say, a dogfight by interrupting play or we go on and do something else. Maybe we go out in the yard and play Fetch your Maybe it's time for some crate time so that they can take a nap and settle down. So I do monitor activity levels and make sure that the dogs are staying at a comfortable, happy level but not escalated. So a little growling is okay. Play growling a spying. You're gonna hear that. In fact, if you've never watched dogs play before, this can be shocking to some people. They see dogs playing and they think they're fighting. They see the mouthing and the air. You know, the they're biting each other's legs and jaws and for, and they start to panic. The old these dogs are not getting along, but again, if you are a member of my program. I've posted several videos of puppies Blaine dogs playing so that you can see what that looks like. If you're new to this. I know I have. A lot of members have never had a dog before and they just aren't familiar with what dog play looks like. So I have several of those videos also in my program that you were able to go and watch if you need help with that or in that scenario, all right, so we talked about when you introduce the new puppy, how to do it and then managing the time that they spend together again. You guys use crates throughout the day, creates air, not just for night time. Sleeping I use creates throughout the day as management tools. If your puppy is too wound up their hyper, I put them in a crate with a Kong stuffed with the yummy, delicious things that they love. And it's literally just we're gonna chill and settle down for a minute, and then you get to come right back out. So this is not punishment. Using the crate for time out. If I'm separating my dogs in a multiple dog household, I'm not using the crates as punishment. You could view it that way. I guess if you feel like the dog wanted to keep playing and now they can't play anymore. But I'm doing this as Hey, things are getting a little escalated. We need to calm down for a minute. We need to get control of ourselves again, so we're gonna spend a little bit of time in our crates. But look, here's something super yummy to d'oh and did you on And then we'll get back out will play in a few minutes. So I do that regularly with multiple dog households. When I'm training multiple dogs, I use crates. Crates are great management tools to allow me to work one on one with a puppy, and then I can get all the dogs out. They can play together than we can put them back in, creates they can learn how to settle themselves. It's really I feel like beneficial for dogs to go from play, to settle, to play, to settle and back and forth so that they're really able to get control of their manners. So let's talk about training because that leads us right into that. I like to train dogs together as well. A. Separately. So most often, when I'm teaching a puppy a new behavior, I like to do it one on one. So I'll put my other dog in his crate and I'll give him something good to do and to keep him busy. And then I'll get the puppy out and we'll do a nice good training session, maybe a 10 to 15 minute training session where we really focus on fine tuning and perfecting some of the things that we're working on. Once my puppy has done that little session and maybe learned that new behavior, then I'll get my older dog out and I'll do them, you know, practice them together. So that's a great distraction for your puppy. It's also a way to make the training a little bit harder. It makes the puppy have toe work a little harder to focus Now. I say that like I taught the behavior and then all of a sudden, the new dogs out when we're ready to move on to the next step. That's not always true. Sometimes when you teach that initial behavior, when you get the other dog out, you might want to go back to behaviors your puppy knows better so that it's not as stressful. So when you get the dogs out together, go to things that they know and that they can do, and they can be successful at together with an extra added distraction of one another. And then as you practice the new behavior, you can start to incorporate that into those training sessions. When you're working with multiple ducks, that makes sense. Hopefully, I didn't confuse you there, but yeah, definitely trained them together. It's great for both of them to work around another dog. And to be able to listen to you when there's another dog present again takes things to the next level for a lot of these behaviors. So what does that look like? What are some ideas? Here's a quick one I love to use. Go to bed or matte work. Some of you call it some of you call it place. I know my service dogs. That's what we use for them. But this idea of going to a spot and I'm going to stay there until I'm released. So what this might look like in a training with multiple dogs because I might have my older dog on his bed. So I say, Bruno, go to bed and he's now they're on his bed and he's gonna stay there until he's released. And then I have boots. He's our service dog in training again, and he might be working on a sit and then a down. We might do some shake high five turn roll, you know, go in. He has multiple behaviors, he knows, and so we'll work on a few of those and then I'll tell Bruno Release and he'll get a reward. Then I might do things together, such as both dogs, Aaron, a sit, stay both dogs, Aaron A down stay and I'll walk around the room. I'll start tossing toys. I'll start moving, you know, dropping treats or food on the floor. I'll open the outside door and shut it. I'll go outside and come back in so I'll do lots all sorts of four D things where we're adding the distraction, the duration, the distance and the difficulty to prove thes behaviors and make them stronger and to really help our puppy grow and become better. So that's a good example of how I would maybe train dogs together. So they're both out ones on the bed, one's doing commands. And then I would switch. So I put boots on the bed recognizing that as a puppy he's not gonna be able to stay there as long as Bruno. So he might be on the bed. And I have Bruno do one behavior. And then I released the puppy, and now I can work with both dogs again. We're doing things that they both know how to do. Puppy pushups are phenomenal for this. Get both dogs to sit, get bull, talks to down, get both dogs to sit back and forth. Um, those are things that a puppy can pick up fairly quickly and is able to do around other dogs. All right, you guys, I hope that helps. So again, when you introduce dogs, do it in a space where they can see each other but not necessarily get to one another and then manage the time that they are together. Also, be patient. It does take a few days, maybe even initial weeks, to really let these puppies figure out one another. And the new routine in the home and just settle in and adjust to the new addition to the family. So in that time frame, be vigilant and managing their time together again. Feed them separately. If you're going to give them choose or bones or things like that, do in separate locations until you can really assess how well they get along. And then, as training goes, do, train them together separately. Mix it up, keep it fun. There is great value in having your puppy learned to do behaviors and listen to you when another dog is around. So that's a great advantage of having a multiple dog household. All that you guys happy training. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I'll talk to you next week. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training questions, visit my sight. Baxter and Bella dot com to contact me