Multiple dog households: Or should I say small kennel.

Ed i'm curious if you allow more than one dog to run loose in you're house? If so could you explain the reasoning behind it? Anyone else have any sucess stories relating to three or more dogs running at large in the house?

Glenn

I have four dogs: 16 y/o Beagle, 3 y/o male Golden, 11 mth old female Golden, 1 y/o male Border Collie-mix. They all get along fine and have free reign of the house when we are home. When we go out, all but the male Golden are crated...the beagle is too destructive and other 2 are still too young to be left out on their own.

We have 3...
-4 year old GSD (possibly a pure breed)
-3 yeard old Lab/Beagle mix
-1 year old pure bred Boxer.

All of our dogs have had to prove themselves before they were allowed to have free roam of the house and even now, they are still watched pretty closely to make sure they stay out of trouble. Right now, the only time any of them go in their crates is when nobody is home (once or twice a week).

One note though... I don't know that this will be the case with my next dog. After another year or so of learning, I plan to get a "working" dog. Knowing that these dogs tend to have much higher drives, and occaisionally compulsive or even destructive tendencies, I don't know that my next dog will have free roam of the house.

Make sure you read Ed's article about introducing a new dog to your home. I have a 3 yr. old Golden Ret. (Noley) who is always free to roam the house and a GSD (Koach) that is 8mos. old. The GSD is only loose when we are home and have eyes on him. He is still chewing the wrong things so he must be supervised at all times when not in his crate. Both dogs get along great, and there have been no problems yet. Good luck and make sure you check out Ed's article it will help you introduce your new dog to your home.
Terry

I've read everything there is to read on Ed's site concerning multiple dogs in a household. Including e-mails he received. I started this thread in hopes of hearing more success stories than bad concerning this issue. You might as well say I have a small kennel because I own 4 GSD's. I learned a long time ago that if you have multiple dogs you need to have a place to keep each dog seperate from the other. Fortunately for me this is not a problem because I live alone. I knocked out a bedroom wall that adjoins the garage and installed a regular door. I then built three chain link kennels in the gagrage. The bedroom is where I keep their individual crates. I think that alot of people feel that there is a need for their dogs to have a relationship with each other. I myself keep fighting this feeling too but have not allowed this to happen on a regular basis. On rare occasions I will allow two of my dogs to roam together under strict supervision. Selecting the pair I choose to do this with is totally dependant upon the individuals dogs temperament. In my mind this would not be a real problem for the average pet owner but would be for a working dog. So are there any other thoughts from you guys? Could you explain why you do what you do with you're multiple dogs?

Glenn

I keep my dogs semi-separate.

I have one outside kennel dog (my APBT). The reason for my APBT being kenneled is we do not have solid fencing around my property and he will run off when given the chance.

I have 2 outside dogs that are not kenneled (GSD mix and Rat Terrier). These 2 dogs stay in the property. My old GSD mix and my Rat Terrier get along just fine.

Then Remi (8 month old GSD)is my inside/crate dog. He is not allowed to roam free inside and when outside is either on a tie to the tree or on a leash. I do not allow interaction between the old GSD mix and Remi because the old man is REALLY OLD (13) and Remi is too rambunctious. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> However, the Rat Terrier and Remi seem to get along just fine as well, so they get short supervised play times.

Glenn,
I have 4 GSD and one Tibetian Terrier. All the GSD are West German working lined dogs or Czech working lines. Three of the dogs, 6.5 year old male GSD, 3.5 years old female GSD, and Tibetian terrier can be out together. They have free range of the house day and night without problems.
The other two GSD's are females that do not get along with each other or the other female or male and are kenneled. They get their time in the house everyday by themselves but sleep in their kennels. My male is my retired PPD and retired SAR dog who provides night security for our home, the 3.5 year old female is my current SAR K9 and sleeps on the floor next to my bed. The Terrier is my daughters dog and sleeps with her.
The male ignores the terrier and my current SAR dog. My SAR dog ignores the male but rides herd over the terrier, making sure all rules are followed or her head is pinned down. Its a tough life for the terrier going around with a saliva soaked head all day.

Only dog that runs my house is the pet Golden.

The rest (our working dogs) stay kenneled.

I have two male shepherds 11 and 6 they are kept together all the time never seperated.They spend the day in the cellar with a doggie door that gives them access to my backyard.They are put in the cellar at 6:30am and stay there or in the backyard untill I let them in the house around 7:30 pm.Once they come into the house they go into whatever room I am in and they sleep on the floor, never allowed to play or rough house inside.So they mainly use the inside of the house for sleeping only.Never have had a problem with fighting or anything else,once inside the house they know how to behave.If they do not behave in the house a simple down stay will do or better yet I simply put them outside.

I have three female german shepherds in the house full time. Ages, 2, 2.5 and 3. I've never had a problem with them in the house so far. They share the same food bowl, water bowl, when given treats they each go to a separate area to enjoy them on their own accord. They play with toys together, one will steal the toy from the other then the other two will grab on, shake, pull, tug, etc until they win the toy then run around madly for a minute before walking back up to the others to start the game again. Toys are not left out, I set them out then decide when playtime is over. Two of them are crated during the night and the third left loose. The one to stay loose rotates. No one ever has freedom in the house if we are not home or if we are even outside working in the yard. They get put outside in our kennels. I believe that even the smallest risk of them getting into mischief while left unsupervised is too big of a risk so I'd rather be safe than sorry. They usually stay together, play together, groom each other, lay on each other...almost to the point that it puts me in mind of how a litter of pups will cuddle up to each other. It also puts me in mind of my three children....oldest, middle child and the baby of the family because the dogs act like that as well sometimes. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> The youngest female will go to the oldest to be groomed and will go cuddle with the middle dog and take a nap. The middle dog acts like the middle child would...sometimes needing some extra one on one attention. The oldest is the wisest and tries to take care of the other two. She gets up to go and check and see where they are, give a nuzzle and lick to them before settling back down for awhile. It's really interesting to watch how they interact together.