alycia.ammar

Hello! We have two dogs and are having our first baby in February. We have been putting baby items (swing, bassinet etc) in the house one by one to get them used to these items before baby comes. Our husky/shepherd gets quite guarded of the items toward our other dog, we have been ignoring the behaviour and eventually she gets used to it and stops guarding the item. However A couple times the dogs have gotten into a fight over these things which we have had to break up. My question is how do we go about this resource guarding properly, and especially when baby comes? I am nervous the baby will become something the dogs will fight over and that is definitely not something we want! And my second question, what is the proper way to break up a dog fight? A bit of background: both dogs will guard random household items if it is something not normally there. Example shoes left out, wrapper on the floor, something unusual on the coffee table. We try our best not to leave things out but when it does happen they often get into a fight over it. They have never actually hurt each other, and also never display aggression towards us but the fights do sound dramatic and scary. thanks in advance!

Great, thank you Adrienne!!

I don’t think he gets anxious during the day because there are no signs when we get home (ex bed in crate torn up, crate moved etc) but if it is the case that he is barking and chewing in the day, how would you recommend going about that? We have considered leaving them out together but it just makes me nervous.

That makes so much sense! We have considered bringing the crate upstairs but would have to bring it back downstairs every morning. Maybe we will consider getting another one to keep up in the room! I will definitely look into recording him during the day. Thank you so much for the advice!

Also another thing to add - we have tried keeping our other dog downstairs at night to see if it helps but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.

During the day, it is normally 5-6 hours depending on the day. At night it is 8-9 hours, depending when he falls asleep. I always wait until he is tired enough to put him in there. Our other dog is around in the day - she just sleeps on the couch while we are away! The crate is kept in the living room where she is.

Ah, good to hear! Another problem is he also chews on the base of the crate, and his bark is very loud! We live in a duplex so the neighbors don’t appreciate that very much. Our other dog nova also sleeps up in our room - I really wouldn’t have a problem with them both sleeping upstairs as they are both housetrained however I am just nervous it will make him not want to be in his crate even more!

Hello! I had another question about crate training. Our rescue pup we got about a month ago was fine in the crate at the beginning - but now hates it at night. We have two dogs and he needs to be crated in the day as I’m not sure we can leave them alone together while we are away. I know you are supposed to create positive experiences in the crate and take time to gradually get them used to it - however I’m not sure how to do that since I need him to be in it every day! He seems to be more ok with it during the day when I leave, but at night he barks non stop and scratches at the door. We also can’t keep blankets inside because he will just eat them! Also, do you ever recommend leaving the dogs out together alone? Our first dog is fine to roam all day and it would be great if eventually they both could. They don’t get into fights - only once in a while if food drops on the floor accidentally. Thanks in advance!

Great, thank you so much!

Hello! We currently have 2 dogs - Nova, a husky/shepherd mix who is 14 months and Cooper, a lab mix who is approx 7 months we just rescued a month ago. I'm just wondering what duration and number of training sessions works best for this program! The only times I can really train them separately is when the other goes outside for a few minutes, so I maybe get 15 minutes a day alone with each spread out through the day. Is this enough? I am worried they are not learning much! Can the games be played with two dogs at once? Thank you!