Dog trainers and parents know the value of a playpen

Many parents will know the joys of being able to park their crawler in a playpen from time to time and know that they’ll stay safe.

Puppies need to be protected from many of the same dangers as babies. 

But there’s someone that needs to be protected from the puppy!  And that’s your older dog.

Your older dog didn’t choose to get a puppy - you did. 

His opinion hasn’t been asked. There he is, enjoying his peaceful home, when suddenly a ball of fluff and teeth arrives and he is expected to be an unpaid childminder.

Quite soon the pup is ruling the roost. Your faithful older dog is jumped on and chewed mercilessly whenever the pup is awake. If he tells the pup off he gets told off himself. He can’t win.

Don’t abandon your old friend!

Your first dog needs to know that he is still special and has his own life. And a great way to ensure this is by using the playpen.

When it’s time for the pup to wake up and emerge from her crate, you’ll be taking her to the garden, on her own. So once peeing is done, the dogs may like to have a quick game together. Interrupt it as soon as it starts getting rough (even after two minutes if necessary) and divert them to something else - a game with you, perhaps. 

Now is a good time for the pup to go into her playpen, with loads of things to chew and interact with (cardboard boxes, food toy, soft toys, plastic bottles, chews, bones …) while you get on with your work and Dog no.1 gets a break. 

And perhaps some personal time with you.

Not just dogs

The cat is safe from molestation as well, and I don’t have to shriek or grab the puppy to prevent disaster. 

You can zigzag it and divide a whole room, as I have in the puppy pictures on this page. 

I found this most useful - my puppy could be loose in the kitchen with me, the adult dogs could enjoy the freedom of going out to the garden or into the house and into the living room, and could see and interact with me. 

Oh, and if you pop the puppy into her pen when she’s still very young, she’ll never realise that jumping out is an option!

You can get great pet playpens cheaply. The one I use is tall enough to be stable if a taller pup stands up with her paws against it. It has a door. It can be any shape from a hexagon to a rectangle or more creative shapes to fit between or around your furniture. It can be used indoors and out. It doubles as a barrier at an open door.

My puppy playpen also does service as a “balcony” when we’re camping in the van, so I can have the doors wide open and know the dogs aren't going to fall off a cliff. 

Resistance

So it seems strange to me that some people should resist using a playpen for their pup. Some don’t want to spend the (small) money for something they think they’ll only use for a few months. But that is a false economy! It will save you so much bother and moaning at your puppy. Your relationship could be damaged, and for what? 

I’ve used my playpen extensively even though my youngest “pup” is now 4. It really has paid for itself over and over again.

Everyone happy! (Especially Squeak the Cat …)

Check out this article for more ideas on containment, with a free guide to download. 

 

How does your reactive dog impact the rest of your doggy family?

It cannot be denied that if you have a reactive dog you have a completely different owner-dog relationship from the average pet-dog-owner. 

You have to invest time, maybe money, and much thought, into making life better for this little dog you have taken on. And in so doing you travel a road with him that most dog-owners don’t. This is why many people become devoted to their “special needs” dog, and fiercely protective of them. 

While this is a good thing - any deep relationship has the potential to be life-enhancing - sometimes your other family pets get elbowed out in favour of the special one, who gets the lion’s share of attention.

Reader Harriet made just this point to me recently, when she confessed that she felt her non-reactive dog was missing out: 

“She's the kind of 'no trouble’ dog it's easy to overlook when you are investing most of your energy in a more challenging one.”

Sometimes these feelings get mixed up with guilt - something most humans are SO good at! But really, there’s no point in blaming yourself, or the breeder, or the shelter, or another dog, or the stars … It is, as they annoyingly say, what it is. This is where we are, and blaming and guilt are not going to help you one jot!

• Maybe you got your dog as a puppy and something happened to upset him.

• Maybe you got him from rescue and the sum of his life experiences have made him reactive.

• Maybe he ended up in rescue because his previous owners weren’t prepared to dedicate the necessary time to him. OR

• Maybe your dog is just the way he is.

However it came about, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work helping your dog.

But you don’t want to forget your easy-going dogs!

It would be easy to focus entirely on your neediest dog and let the other/s coast. But that would be as bad as neglecting your reactive dog and letting him get on with it. 

All the dogs in our care deserve equal respect and attention. But that doesn’t mean they all have to be treated the same!

The joy of a multi-dog household is the contrast in characters, the differences in likes and dislikes. You find the joy for each dog and give them what they need. 

In my own household I have four very different dogs! And they are each treated as individuals.

Rollo, the herder, gets to mind his chickens a lot of the day, usually with a large soft bear in his mouth. This harmless pastime employs his herding instincts, and keeps him happy. 

Lacy, the most challenging of my dogs, gets plenty of solo walks where we can work on changing her response to sudden environmental change, people who shouldn't be there, other dogs.

Cricket the Whippet has her physical comforts tended to ceaselessly! She loves warmth, so she has duvets, jumpers, access to squares of sunshine . . .

Coco Poodle gets precision Obedience Competition training (a bit like dressage for horses) as this gives his fertile brain very tricky puzzles to solve, and builds his much-needed impulse control. 

They all get frequent free-running, exploring walks where they are free to be dogs.

And, of course, all four dogs get similar individual training in general household obedience, and can all perform tricks for fun. Different tricks for the different characters.

One thing I have found helpful to keep track of all these dogs with their different needs, is to have a whiteboard with the following categories:

Solo Walks
Training/Outings
Group Walks

Each dog is ticked off for each activity as it happens. This means I never get to the end of the week and wonder when I last paid any attention to one of the quieter dogs!

Keeping the world at bay

Harriet again:

“I think what happens when you have a reactive dog - not only are you investing a lot of time and effort in behaviour change, there is also the emotional investment in defending them from the rest of the world which is labelling them a bad/aggressive dog (and often you as a rubbish handler!).”

It’s easy to slip into a defensive mode when you feel people are judging you and your dog. 

This is a corrosive frame of mind and will not move you forward!

When it comes down to it, other people’s opinions (and they are in the main uneducated opinions) count for nothing. While you don’t want to feel like Evelyn Waugh’s character “Sebastian contra mundum” (Sebastian versus the rest of the world) - and we certainly have to have consideration for our fellow-residents on this planet - this doesn’t mean we have to feel inferior, just because others don’t understand.

People can be very quick to judge when they don’t understand something. Because they don’t understand, they become fearful, Hence the awful gang attacks on “different” people. 

Parents of challenging children have to put up with this ill-considered judgy-wudgy attitude daily, from those who have no conception of what it is like.

Enjoy your easy dog!

So if you have an easy dog, you can enjoy a holiday from the stresses and strains you may be feeling at the moment with your reactive and sometimes trying dog. 

Take your easy-going, friendly, happy-go-lucky, untroublesome dog out alone with you on walks or outings - to a cafe, perhaps - where you can relax and enjoy not getting glared and stared at. Enjoy a bit of dog-therapy with her. Remember why you wanted a dog in the first place.

You never know, some of those judgers may see you and realise that perhaps you aren’t such a “rubbish handler” after all.

For help with your reactive, anxious, aggressive, “growly” dog, get our free email course here.

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Two dogs - twice as nice or twice the trouble?

You may think that having one dog is such fun that you’d like to double up on your happiness by having two. And as one who has had multiple dogs for many years I can confirm that it is fun! 

But it’s also very hard work. Think four or five times the work, not twice the work. Because you have two (often very different) individuals to cater for, at the same time. There’s how they interact with you, how they interact with you individually, and how they interact with each other, that you have to know, understand, and manage.

Sometimes people get so swept up in the melee of dogs that they struggle to get even the simplest tasks of feeding and walking done. They have no room or energy left for training. 

If you’re always trying to address a crowd of dogs, you’re never going to be able to assess and deal with each of them satisfactorily. They will bounce round you while you try to lead them up for a walk, for instance, and as soon as you get one to sit the other jumps on him and they’re off again. This is a common picture of preparing for a walk in a household where there’s more than one dog, and it spreads across the whole day so that every interaction becomes noisy, boisterous, frustrating, and very annoying! At this stage the owner is tempted to give up, admit defeat, and let the lunatics take over the asylum.

Don’t!

You can turn this round.

Work with each individual dog to discover his special qualities

And the first thing to do is remember that you don’t have a pack of dogs, you have two charming individual dogs. They both deserve equal attention from you.

So here are some pointers that will help you get back on track and build a great relationship with each dog.

1. When you first introduce a new dog or puppy into your dog household, ensure that the first dog continues to get lots of your attention, that he gets very little attention (or fuss or bother) from the newcomer, that he can find a safe haven away from the attentions of the new dog (which, after all, you chose to get - he didn’t), and is never chastised for showing his impatience with or dislike of the incomer.

2. Meanwhile, focus on building a relationship directly with your new dog that does not involve your first dog. If you just chuck ‘em in together and let them sink or swim, you’re never going to be the most important thing in your new dog’s life. He’ll see himself and Dog no.1 as “Us” and you as “Them”. So while you spare your first dog being badgered by the new dog, you focus most of your training attention on the newbie. This is very easy with a puppy as they need to sleep so much, leaving you lots of time for one-on-one interactions with Dog no.1. But even mature dogs need a lot of daytime rest too, so if you’re bringing an adult dog into your home have a safe secure place for each dog to go for these extended naps. You’ll find crates and baby-gates invaluable.

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3. Limit free play between the dogs. Lots of play with you and one dog, or you and two dogs, but very little play between the two dogs. Later on they can play when they like, but not in these crucial first few months when you are establishing the new relationships.

4. Solo walks. This is essential for training and for life. My solution is to have a solo roadwalk with one of my dogs each morning by turn, and group free-running walks of two or all four at other times. This way no dog misses out on my personal attention when out or on the vital training, and they still get plenty of time to roam and explore together too.

5. Solo training. This is where many people come unstuck! They’ve seen that trying to “group-train” doesn’t work and they have every intention of working on their dogs individually. But how to do it? Put one away in crate or the other room and he cries and scrabbles at the door. Then the dog being trained is distracted too. Frustration all round. So the answer is to teach them to take turns: first you can simply name the dog and offer a treat, name the other dog and offer a treat, and so on. Each dog will learn to wait for his name before attempting to take the treat. Once they’ve grasped this concept, you can grade up to matwork.

Cricket and Lacy are rewarded for staying on the bed while Coco Poodle pup gets some valuable training

6. Matwork is the answer to all of the questions I get which involve management of a multi-dog household. Teach each dog to stay on his bed/mat/chair regardless of what else is happening. You’ll have to do this with them alone to get started, so maybe choose a time when your partner can take one out for a walk. Failing that you’ll have to crate one near you while you start the matwork training with the other.

If you follow the step-by-step process in Calm Down! Step-by-step to a Calm, Relaxed, and Brilliant Family Dog - available as a free digital download at all ebook stores - you’ll find this goes extraordinarily fast! So once they each know their own mat and what to do with it, you can start super-short sessions with both of them on their mats. I would have both dogs on their mats being rewarded between the paws as usual, then “break” one dog off the mat (you’ll learn how to do this in the book), reward the other heavily for not getting off his mat, return the first to his mat for a few treats, then “break” the other dog, reward, return to mat.

Once they can both do this - and remember, one will learn faster than the other! - you can extend this by breaking Dog 1 then asking him to maybe Sit or Down or whatever trick he knows while you heavily reward Dog 2 for staying on his mat before returning Dog 1 to his mat … and so on. Each dog will have a couple of turns of coming out for a Sit (or whatever) while the other waits calmly. If they are bouncing off their mats to join in, you’ve gone too fast! Go back a few steps and strengthen your foundation work before putting it to such an extreme test. Keep sessions very short - maybe 10 treats each, over a period of one and a half minutes, then put the mats away for next time.

Always keep in mind that the dog on the mat is working just as hard as the dog having a training session with you, and needs to be rewarded at least as frequently as the dog who is off his mat. You will soon be able to do extended training sessions (several minutes) with one dog while the other waits patiently for his turn. Switch them round and off you go again!

7. Once both dogs know exactly what to do on their mats, you can teach them to keep in whatever spot you choose for them. When I’m training in the garden, three dogs will be parked on top of the picnic table while I work the fourth. Indoors I may just drop them wherever they are (or there are lots of beds around the place they can choose!). Now you have a fully portable behaviour of keeping still when required, whatever the temptation and excitement.

Once you’ve got this going well, you can extend the dogs’ impulse control and get them both waiting nicely when you want to put on their walking gear, have them sit at doors till you open them and release them one by one by name, have them wait in the car till called out individually, and so on. 

You can accommodate their individuality, and their individual speed of learning. You can understand their fears and foibles and know what each dog needs to live a happy life.

And once they’re living a happy life - you can live a happy life with them! You’ll get the pleasure and enjoyment from your two companions that you longed for at the start. And who knows, now you know the recipe, you may even consider a third dog (not three times the work, but nine times the work! Remember you have to work on the interactions between each dog and the others, and each dog and you.) 

Of one thing I’m fairly sure: once you’ve experienced the fascination of having two different personalities with their own likes and dislikes and their own individual personalities - with hopefully an increased understanding and tolerance of all dogs, however different from yours they may be - you probably will never want to go back to having only one dog again.

So that statement contains an awful warning! When you start out with a multi-dog household, you’ll probably have a multi-dog household for ever - there’s no turning back. Make sure you have the time needed to put in all the extra work, especially in the first six months or so, which will make your family life run smoothly and without chaos and mayhem.

Meanwhile, for help with lots of everyday dog problems, get our free 8-part email course here:

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I have a reactive dog - can I get a new puppy too?

Rollo the Border Collie initiates play with Coco Poodle at 15 weeks - 7 weeks after he arrived!

Many people who have a reactive dog - one who looks ferocious to strange dogs - wonder if they can ever have a puppy again. And they wonder if their reactive dog would accept the puppy or whether it would all end in tears. 

They may long to give their anxious dog a playmate. This is a nice reason - but quite a lot of dogs are not very interested in playing with other dogs. Even in my busy household, play between any or all of the dogs only happens occasionally - and fairly briefly - and when they’re already excited about something. There are lots of smaller interactions going on, of course, but not necessarily play.

Whether this is the right step for you is something you have to assess with your individual dog. Most adult dogs will - eventually - accept a puppy into the home. Some take a long time, while others are delighted and bond immediately with the newcomer, their behaviour perfectly appropriate and gentle. You can get an idea from your dog’s reaction to a very young puppy by allowing him to see one - but your first consideration here would be the safety and wellbeing of the puppy. Early bad experiences can be hard to erase. So possibly a puppy held in someone’s arms, behind a fence, while your dog observes from whatever is a safe and appropriate distance where he won't bark and frighten the pup. 

So assuming that passed off peaceably enough, actually introducing a young puppy into the home will present its own challenges! 

If your reactive dog is one of those who is not keen on puppies in his face - like my Border Collie Rollo - you’ll need to keep them largely apart for a long while.  But it can all come good in the end, and Rollo is now totally accepting of the three younger dogs in the household, and often initiates play with them. When he’s had enough, the game ends.

Start the change with your reactive, anxious, aggressive - Growly - dog with our free Masterclass packed with ideas and strategies, all force-free

“Puppy, meet Dog”

So you may be surprised - and delighted - at the success of the initial introductions. But this is only the beginning! I just want to give you a little guidance going forward.

• You need to focus largely on your new puppy for the next 9 months or so. He’s only going to learn if you put in the flying hours!

• New pups should be kept separate from older dogs most of the time. Yes - most of the time. You can’t just chuck ‘em in together and hope that it will all go swimmingly. It’s easy to keep them separate because your new puppy needs to sleep around 17+ hours a day, so all that sleeping time should be spent in his crate, in a playpen, or in a separate room. A playpen that opens out as a zigzag that will divide a whole room is really helpful for when the puppy is awake. Last time I had a puppy in the house, the playpen formed a long barrier across the kitchen. The older dogs could go in and out of the garden, upstairs, wherever they wanted, but I didn’t have to worry about the pup’s safety if he annoyed them. So the dogs were not excluded, and could study the new creature in the secure knowledge that they couldn’t be molested by the tiny fluffball!

  And here's a great post about how to use a playpen for best results

• Remember that your older dog didn’t choose to get a puppy - you did!

• The general rule of thumb is that your new puppy can play with your older dog for one third of the time he plays with you. So if you interact/train/play with your puppy for one hour a day, that means he gets twenty minutes playing with the older dog - preferably in 3-5 minute chunks through the day. People gasp when I tell them this, as I can see in their eyes that they’re reflecting on the fact that at the moment their dogs have 24/7 access and are forever playing roly-poly games on the carpet. But it’s something you have to do. These early weeks and months are such a valuable time for bonding with your new charge - don’t waste them!

• If you leave the two dogs together all the time during this vital developmental stage, you’ll end up with a young dog who only listens to the other dog, and never listens to you. (Don’t be like the owner who said to me, “I wish I’d listened to you 6 months ago. Now we’ve just got two hooligans.”)

• Take time developing play with your puppy. Our play is not as natural as dog-dog play, so you have to work at it. Tug is a great game that harnesses the puppy’s instinctive drive - which all types and breeds of dog have - to locate prey, stalk it, chase it, catch it, and kill it. Taught properly this game builds huge impulse control in your dog. (And uses up loads of energy - yay!)

• Respect your older dog and make sure he always has space and is never pestered - especially if he’s not so agile any more. Imagine visiting a friend’s house and her children treat you as a climbing frame, poking fingers into your mouth and ears - no, you wouldn’t like it! Sooner or later your puppy will lose his puppy licence and your older dog will say, “That’s it! I’ve had enough!” and snap (or worse) at him. Ensure this can never happen.

• Make sure to have lots of private time with your faithful older dog, alone. As he is reactive and has his own issues and worries, you’ll need to continue your program to make life easier for him when out. While your training focus should be firmly on your puppy, whose developmental stages will fly by if you’re not paying attention, you’ll find that two dogs does not equal half the work (as you may have thought) but at least twice the work!

• Never leave the two alone together. Just never. Not just for their safety, but also because what may seem a bad idea to a lone dog (like shredding the cushions) may take on a different hue when a young ragamuffin says “Let’s! I dare you!” When you’re not with them, they should both be asleep.

• Remember that your prime task right now is introducing your puppy to our world and everything in it, before he reaches the age of 14-15 weeks. The socialisation window gradually closes between 12 and 16 weeks and new things met after that can result in distrust or fear. Follow closely a good guide on Puppy Socialisation, Habituation, and Familiarisation, and ensure all novelty is experienced with a calm, happy puppy. You know a lot about dog body language by now from your reactive dog: watch your puppy like a hawk to learn his signals.

• Don’t make the common and disastrous mistake of thinking that playing with your older dog at home is a substitute for thorough and careful socialisation! Your brand new puppy doesn’t have to meet dogs yet, but definitely has to see loads of them. All different activity types, colours, coats, ears - they’re all different and new pup needs to experience all of them. Carry him if he hasn’t had his jabs yet.

• And NO group walks for now. Reactivity is highly catching, so you want to introduce your puppy to the outside world with no fears and poor examples to copy. I wouldn’t walk my new puppy with my reactive dog till pup is at least 6 months (depending on breed - larger dogs 9-12 months minimum).

You have the rest of your lives together to enjoy a great relationship - between you and your older dog, between you and your new dog, and between the two dogs themselves. Don’t hurry and skip any of these vital steps. The time will fly by much faster than you anticipate.

Anything you may regard as restrictive at first sight will be seen to be just plain ole commonsense - and will become an automatic part of your management plan for your household.

Want a step-by-step guide to everything you need to know about your new puppy? Get New Puppy! here, and start on the right paw!

Once your puppy is about 9 weeks old and has settled in with you, you can start working through the Brilliant Family Dog series of how-to e-books. Everything is broken down for you into little steps - and what’s more, check the calm down book! Go get it now.

And hunt around the Blog to find help with Housetraining, Sleeping through the Night, and so on.

Want help with your Growly Dog? Get our free e-course here and get started!

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