Dogs sharing crates in dog walkers van?

[Bordersandballs]

Is this something that is considered poor practice? I just discovered my dog walker has been doing this and I am little worried as I have quite an anxious dog

Being realistic, are you going to get up and walk your dog for 90 minutes before work in the freezing cold rain and dark in the middle of December?

That's what good owners do all year round. If you don't want to do it, don't have a dog, especially one that requires that level of exercise and stimulation.

Plenty of people never walk their dogs in the mornings - they do lunchtime or evening walks instead.

Yes because they are awful dog owners.

Oh, do stop being ridiculous.

No it isnt ridiculous and these dogs are the ones most likely to display behavioural issues. I get that poor down ownership is very common because people think they have right to a pet for their mental health or whathaveyou, but I'm not one of those people.

Of course it’s ridiculous. As long as a dog gets adequate exercise and stimulation across the day, it really doesn’t matter whether it happens at 5am, midday, 7pm or at 2 in the morning.

If you tried to wake my working breed at 5am to go for a walk he wouldn’t even budge. You’d get a side eye, a loud huff and then he’d go back to snoring.

Most dogs will very much benefit from an early morning walk. Many working breeds start their work at that time. Maybe yours has become accustomed to a sedentary lifestyle

Are you always so sneery about people who do things differently to you?

He gets plenty of exercise - about two hours a day on average - but he doesn’t appreciate being woken up at 5am for it, that’s all.

He comes to work with me as a dog walker for at least an hour and then gets another walk at lunchtime. Some days he goes out with another dog walker on top. He’s far from sedentary - but neither of us like mornings and it doesn’t make you any better than us just because you choose to get yourself up at 5am 👌

Being an owner of a dog that has been bitten recently by another dog which resulted in a £340 vets bill I'd be appalled if they did that with mine who is quite an anxious and not particuarly well socialised dog. It was my fault, I didn't risk assess the situation very well but regardless, if she had been put in a crate with another dog and it had gone into her space she would have growled and depending on how tolerant that dog was it would have most probably attacked her which is what happened in this situation although she was running free at the time.

It wasn't a nasty dog but some dogs like people just don't get on.

Who ever said 5am anyway?

The OP! Read her posts. That’s what I was responding to and you said “that’s what all good dog owners do anyway”.

Or did you not even read what you were replying to before jumping in? 😬

I said good dog owners get up on cold and dark December mornings. I never specified 5am. But I get to some people, anything before 10am might as well be 5am
.

"Being realistic, are you going to get up and walk your dog for 90 minutes before work in the freezing cold rain and dark in the middle of December?"

This is what I replied to.

Yes, and I was responding to the OP who said "If I got up at 5 I could do a good 1.5 hours with her playing and walking".

If you click on "show quote history" you can view the entire quote thread. I didn't just pluck 5am out of thin air - it's what she said she would have to do, which is why I asked if she'd really want to do that every day in the middle of winter.

I would also say putting an anxious dog in a situation like that is also more likely to make it reactive. It's very different having two dogs coexisting in a big enough space they can listen to each others body language and respect it. Putting two potentially hyped up dogs in a small area like that seems highly risky

Did I reply to your quote about 5am, or one about December mornings?

They're both part of the same quote thread, you just ignored what I was responding to and jumped in to comment and be rude to me.

No i jumped into say good dog owners get up on cold and dark December mornings. Seemingly from the quotes you directed me to, you're trying to convince someone who is considering getting up at 5 to walk their dog who needs it that they won't be able to, I think because you can't consistently manage that so assume the other poster won't either.

No, I just think she needs to be realistic about it, that's all.

Good owners provide their dogs with appropriate stimulation, exercise and downtime across the day. The timings will vary depending on their jobs, health, schedules, finances and all sorts of other things.

Getting up in the morning to walk your dog doesn't make you any better of an owner than someone who takes the dog out on their lunch break or after work instead.

OP - enough derailment.

If you think you can commit to 90 minutes of exercise at 5am everyday before work then you can probably get away with just having someone to pop in at lunchtimes, but I would think about having a back-up plan on days where you're sick or the weather isn't safe to be out at that time of day.

Yes it does if your dog would benefit more from that routine. Look we know youd struggle if your dog needed it and it sounds like youve trained them not to depend on a morning walk, so no worries, eh?

Yep, no worries. I'll carry on doing what works for me and leave you to your snide little digs.

Our dog walker only has a single cage in their van and all the dogs are in it (it's the entire size of the rear of the van) and she only walks 3 at a time. But they did tell me about it when I signed up and checked I/ my dog was happy with it. The alternative was an exclusive walk but my dog enjoys the company.

There are no treats left in the back of the van though?

And my dog walker is fantastic, her clients let her know if the dog isn't well (in which case she probably wouldn't take it out in the first instance), and she's v aware of the pack dynamics. She knows which dogs she can put in the same crate and which she may need to separate.

She knows her dogs well.