Leaving two dogs alone

[MissShapesMissStakes]

Following from another thread

I have a 4 month old bitch and a 3 year old dog.

The puppy is still learning when ddog means leave him alone. He's a very laid back, submissive dog but has learnt how to make his point now he has a puppy with him.

We are almost always with them. Sometimes we leave ddog alone for an hour or two but dpup isn't ready for that yet so we take her.

Sometimes we leave them alone while we go into other rooms/outside. But never when pup is in a playful or giddy mood. Always when they are both calm or asleep.

At the moment we have a puppy pen in the corner of the room for night time and pup sleeps in there until we come down.

I saw a few people say never leave two dogs together. No matter how friendly they are as they can seriously hurt/kill each other.

Does this mean if we pop out for half an hour I need to always put pup in her pen? Our house is open plan. Will we not be able to leave them without the pen for night times when the pup has grown up and is reliable with toileting?

I'm thinking if this is the case then maybe I need to get some of those baby gates that are very wide (we have no doorways or separate rooms downstairs and they rarely are allowed upstairs) and separate one in the kitchen and one in the living room. But it seems such a shame. Pup adores ddog and I'm not sure she would settle in a separate room.

What do others with two dogs do?

I would leave them separate for a good 18 months - two years yet.

Dog fights can be incredibly nasty and you really don't want to come home to the aftermath of one. There was a lady on here not long ago (I mentioned it on another thread) who came home from the shops to find one of her dogs had been mauled to death.

I wouldn't say never leave them alone but I think you need to be careful and pay close attention to how tolerant they are of each other etc.

I also think it's really important to get the puppy used to settling on her own - there will be occasions your older dog isn't around - say if he needs to go the vets overnight or something, or is somewhere she can't come, so it's important she doesn't come to rely on him for comfort.

Yes. I think it's a your post on another thread that I saw!

That would be devastating!

We are lucky enough to almost always have someone at home. So even if they aren't physically with the dogs, they will be aware and able to check often (we live with my parents and I home educate, and my husband works from home 90% of the time too). So maybe we pick our times and do that for very short periods, otherwise use the puppy pen.

We have tried to make sure puppy gets time to learn to settle on her own but so far it's not happened. We will keep working on it though. We make sure they go out separately as well as together too.

I'll ask my DH later as he has better memory than me but we kept our puppy (dog) crated when we were out and overnight for a while to not unsettled our older dog (bitch). 2 years between them. Cocker spaniels. They very very rarely fight other than the play tumbling they do together.

Thanks.

So far ours haven't had much of anything. Other than playing. But occasionally she hasn't realised she's crossed the line and ddog is getting annoyed. I'm hoping she learns to pick up on that.

After everyone I know saying 'two dogs is no different to one' they all now seem to say 'yes, it's hard isn't it'. Like it is with kids!
(Although my second child was HARD work so I'd have never said that ).

I've had a total of about 15 years of owning multiple dogs, and we have always left them alone together uncrated. It has never been an issue. IME puppies learn their place quickly, and we've always made sure that the dogs are content together with no general issues (if we'd had chronic fighters, we'd obviously have been much more cautious - a friend of mine came home once to the bloody aftermath of a massive battle between two JRTs). The PILs likewise left up to four dogs together. Our puppy comes from a breeder who has four bitches, who if left are in kennels, either 2 in each or 3 in one and 1 in the other (because she's bossy and domineering, rather than actually aggressive).

I don't think hard and fast rules are terribly helpful here. You have to assess the relationship between the dogs. If your dogs largely ignore each other, it's almost certainly fine to leave them alone. Our two adore each other and the younger would be desolate without the older one.

If, on the other had, one of yours picks fights with other dogs, you might want to reconsider - one of the JRTs I mentioned was your classic little shit of a JRT, always up for a ruck if another dog looked at him the wrong way.

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman
Thank you for your reply.

I always intended to eventually leave them together (obviously if they are good together). But then I read some horror stories and started to worry. The 3 year old was our first dog. He's so lovely and calm.

I think it's so hard to tell with a pup. She's generally really good and training is coming along great so far. She adores my older dog. Even if she looks at him sleeping she wags her tail at him.

We make sure he has plenty of time without her and she knows she isn't allowed in his bed.

She is picking up on his signals mostly. But there are times when she's jumped on him when he was sleeping that have caused him to tell her off. It's never excessive and it's alway seems an appropriate and expected response. Now if he's sleeping, then she does it too.

We are stepping in when she seems to be pushing things too far but maybe we need to leave it to him more? He's never been a growly or snappy dog so it's odd that o see him do that.

They play nicely and seem to know when the other is done (mostly)

I think I want to do loads more research into dog body language.

It's good to know it's a possibility.

I never leave the puppies alone with the other dogs -they puppy may be crated (I am a devil owner! ) or in a room where the big dogs can get out of but the puppy can't. Puppies can be annoying little devils! It depends on the puppy as to what age I do leave them together - usually about 18 months ish.

After that I do leave my dogs together unattended. They are never left for long periods and always left when they are relaxed and sleeping so highly unlikely that they will attack anything as they are all asleep!

@PollyRoullson thank you. We wouldn't leave the puppy and dog alone yet. But have popped out for half an hour while they were both sleeping and dh was working upstairs, and aware they were alone and together. They both slept.

I'm hoping we get to the point where we can relax about it but I don't think it will be for a long time yet. You're right - puppies and very irritating.

We have 3 dogs at the moment and I do leave them alone. I haven’t ever really had a cross word between them.

I’ve always had multiples and have never had a problem as have most of my friends.
I think it’s got to be quite rare to have something go catastrophically wrong without some sort of indication in the past that the dogs may fight.