I have read a few times in Eds articles and on this forum that all of the toys should be understood as my toys, and the dog gets to play with them when I allow him to.

Raising my two dogs, I have always just left the toys around the house. There are various rope toys, kongs and a squeeky ball or two around the house and they get to play with them when they are out, however they are never out of their crates unsupervised.

My question is, would it be beneficial now, at this point (had them for about a year, one is almost a year the other is almost 5) to take the toys up and begin this "my toys are a privilege when you get to play with them" approach? Any tips on problems I may encounter and how to implement this if so?

Also, with kongs, when do you let them have a stuffed kong? In the crate? Only when they are in your eyesight?

Are you dealing with behavioral problems or are the dogs fighting over the toys?

 Quote: Lauren Jeffery

Are you dealing with behavioral problems or are the dogs fighting over the toys?

Occasionally yes. Also it is harder to get attention focused on me when I am telling them stuff and there is toys around them.

Then its not a bad idea to go with the NILIF approach in regards to toys.

The rest of the answers really depend on your dogs and how much control you have. If the dogs can enjoy their stuffed kong out of the crates, and you are able to control them by voice to keep them from claiming the kongs, and there are no fights, then IMO its fine.

If not, its better to have them in the crates for the food stuffed toys.

I allow balls out in the yard with my dogs...,they each have their own ball & but there is a NO toy in the house rule here.

They will each carry their ball around in the yard & play with it...but they know BETTER than to fight over them, or they will disappear. (it has happened in the past on a couple of occasions when they were not playing nice & that was all it took to drive home the idea that play nice or loose the balls) I have no problem with my dogs & doing this...but I think the biggest reason is that for them the real fun doesn't start until I come outside & play with them. Basically, they just hang out waiting for me. (They will run out in the yard & pee & then sit on the deck staring at the back door waiting for me.) My neighbors think this it is funny to see. With some other dogs that don't have that kind of handler focus trained...it might be a big problem.

So I think that unless you have excellent control & leadership in place....having food or toy out is not a good idea. Fights are not pleasant to deal with & neither are the vet bills that often accompany them.

My dogs are often more inclined to get into a tiff in the house in the closer quarters & angling to get closest to me or for attention or for a particular dog bed. If this happens it is delt with very seriously by me & BOTH dogs are corrected not just the one that starts it. Fighting is just NOT allowed by ANYONE & they respect that with very very rare occasion. These are dogs that for about 2 years had to be kept seperated or they would really go at it. It has taken alot of work & training for them to understand the rule. (mostly my male to stop pestering my female who is super reactive & basically just doesn't like him & tollerates him to stay within the rules)

I will also add that there are some dogs that will NEVER get along no matter what you do. So I don't want to advocate testing the water by putting dogs together that don't get along. I had 3 here at one time that all had to be kept seperated. It is just often a fact of life if you want to own multiple dogs. They just don't always like each other. Some dogs can be taught the rules(along with some maturing) to understand co-existance.

Although I could feed together (I do give them treats side by side)without a problem, I don't feel that they should ever slightly think that they have to look over their shoulder eating their meals. I just don't do it. Stuffed kongs are given in seperate rooms or with one in a crate. Just not fair if one finishes their's faster & then eyes the other dog's kongs that they are still eating.

Just my thoughts.

I gotta say that I would like every word in that post to be in neon. Too many threads here have started with "they always got along together with their toys and food and Kongs UNTIL ..." and the until is basically just "until they didn't." And now the dogs can't be together, or one is now fear-aggressive, or one is dead, or whatever.


And this (IMHO) should be billboard size:

Although I could feed together .... I don't feel that they should ever slightly think that they have to look over their shoulder eating their meals. I just don't do it. Stuffed kongs are given in seperate rooms or with one in a crate. Just not fair if one finishes their's faster & then eyes the other dog's kongs that they are still eating.

Alright, I will be going on a scavenger hunt this weekend to find all of the toys!

 Quote: michael bennett

Alright, I will be going on a scavenger hunt this weekend to find all of the toys!

You will discover the side benefit of each toy being "new" again every time you take one out of YOUR toy container.

I also want to add: that when I DID START putting these 2 dogs together for short periods of time, the 1st several times..(one was leashed & then over time moved up to be free) I had a very 'dog knowledgable' & physically strong, friend here with me. I was not taking ANY chances that if my assumptions were wrong with these dogs & they still might like to engage one another...I didn't want to be ALONE to deal with it. If something erupted,I didn't want to have to add to the esculation by having to be shouting over the dogs fighting to give instrucitons on what needed to be done,as would most likely be the case with someone that had just been told what to do before we took the dogs out. I needed someone that instinctivey KNEW what to do.

I have to wholeheartedly agree with these posts. I started doing that with the dogs' toys when they were young after reading a lot on here.

I have a brother and sister dog and when I put a couple of toys down, they both have to have the same toy. It doesn't matter if one dog was chomping away on one toy, as soon as they see the other dog showing interest in a different toy, that dog has to have the toy, too.

So, in the morning, I would take the bin down, put a few toys down and if they started "stealing" from the other or started growling and getting all uppity, the toys go away.

They really don't like that and it doesn't take them long to figure it out.

At night, when I'm getting ready to go to bed, I get the bin, put it on the kitchen counter where they can see it, and I pick up MY toys that I have allowed them to play with after I got home.

It is clearly understood by them that these are my toys. These are not their toys. I am letting them play with these toys but if they want to start acting like they own the toys, those toys are taken away.

And yes, before I started doing this, if I left the toys out, they were bored with them. "Meh, I don't want to play with the stuffed sheep anymore." But I take it away and show it to them each day, it's like I went out and got a brand new toy for them even though it's torn apart and has their slobber all over it.

And finally, I could not possibly agree with this more:

<i>"Although I could feed together .... I don't feel that they should ever slightly think that they have to look over their shoulder eating their meals. I just don't do it. Stuffed kongs are given in seperate rooms or with one in a crate. Just not fair if one finishes their's faster & then eyes the other dog's kongs that they are still eating."</i>

Absolutely. My dogs are fed separately, in their crates. If they get something in their kongs, it's in their crates. My dogs don't seem to particularly care about kongs, (I can't believe it), but when they do have one with treats, crate. I'm not putting up with the growling and snapping and barking that goes on.

Also, when I do the mind stimulating puzzle game I have, (with treats inside each compartment), it's done one dog at a time. I do not allow them to do it together because what is supposed to be a fun game turns in to a competition and there is more attitude problems.

Let the dogs know you control the toys, you control the food, you control the treats. With toys, they will get those when they behave and as they continue to behave. If they want to act up, take the toys away.