May 18, 2011
We have a 10 month old GSD that we think is bored during the day while we are at work. Should we buy a second puppy to keep him busy when we are gone?
Full Question:
Mr. Frawley,My wife and I own a 10 month old GSD. We give him plenty of attention in the afternoon after work. We take him on a two mile walk, play fetch the ball, tug, hide and seek, etc. We also bring him in at night and let him interact with us. However, it's the period that we're not home during the day that concerns me. We have a fairly large fenced back yard, but I know he gets bored and lonely by himself. Do you think it would be a good idea for us to get another dog so that he would have a companion? We were thinking about another German shepherd. Is this a good or bad idea? If we get another dog, should it be male or female? Thanks in advance for your response.
Ed's Answer:
It’s not a good idea to add another dog just so your dog has something to play with when you are at work. In fact it’s a terrible idea.
- You are spending plenty of time with your dog.
- When people buy puppies they should not allow the pup to spend any unsupervised time with an adult dog. To do so hampers the mental development of the pup. The pup ends up looking to the other dog for its companionship and never really bonds well with humans.
- The only way that people should try and raise a second pup is to keep them totally separated from the first dog with a separate dog crate or dog kennel until the pup is 7 to 10 months old.
- Your dog is old enough to start some advanced obedience training. This gives the dog something to think about.
- If you would like to learn more about the principles of obedience training a dog, read the description for my Basic Dog Obedience video. You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog must go through before it can be considered fully trained. You can also read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes. I think if you read the testimonials on that tape you will see that my customers feel the same way.
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