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July 08, 2014

I'm being considered as a new patrol K9 handler with my agency and I'm worried about how it will affect my family and current dog. What are your thoughts?

Full Question:

I'm being considered as a new patrol K9 handler with my agency. I've never worked K9 but I do have a 7 year old retired K9 at home as a family pet. When I got him he was very anti-social and wouldn't let anybody get close to me. Now through extensive training he's adapted very well as a family dog and is great with my wife.

One major issue with him is that he displays his type- A personality towards other dogs in an aggressive manner. My fear is that if I am to start working a new K9 dog, 1.) my current family dog will begin to resent me and 2.) I won't be able to trust both dogs together in the backyard while braking them. Any suggestions or thoughts would be of great help.

Thanks,
Jim

Ed's Answer:

You have good reason to be concerned. The odds of you being able to allow two service dogs of the same sex to run together is about 1%. In other words – its not going to happen. It comes under the category of “Just Because We Want It Doesn't Mean It Can Happen”

So you are going to have to have two dog kennels and accept the fact that these dog's can NEVER be together. It also means your wife and family are 110% on board with this. Here is what happens when people make mistakes when they try and break up a dog fight and they do it wrong.

I wrote an article on my web site titled HOW TO BREAK UP A DOG FIGHT WITHOUT GETTING HURT. Both you and your wife need to know how to do it (and frankly women often don’t have the body strength to do it correctly).

Ed Frawley

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