Having a peaceful household when you live with multiple dogs can be tough — join Loretta and I for a conversation about what it takes, and tips on how to introduce a new dog to your household even if there may be a significant size difference. 

 Transcription

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today I have Loretta Mueller to talk about managing a multi dog household and adding new dogs to that mayhem. Hi, Loretta. Welcome back to the podcast!

Loretta Mueller: Hey, Melissa. Thanks for having me here.

Melissa Breau: Absolutely. To start us out, do you want to just take a minute and kind of remind listeners a little bit about you and your current canine crew? And there's a new addition, right?

Loretta Mueller: There is a new addition, yes. I have my three border collies, so two of them, even in Lynn, are almost 16 years old and going, going great. Going on two mile hikes every single day and doing fun dog things and not listening. Selective hearing going on.

Melissa Breau: They are littermates, right?

Loretta Mueller: Yeah. Yeah, they are litter mates. I would not recommend that. We'll probably never do it again. But. So I've got the girls, the old girls, as I call them. And then I've got Zee, who is my two year old border collie. And she is a handful, but super fun, and I'm really excited about her future. And then the newest addition, if you haven't seen my Facebook page, she's basically the entirety of my Facebook page currently is an eleven week old pomeranian puppy and she's up to 2.8 pounds now.

Melissa Breau: Wow. Yeah.

Loretta Mueller: Yeah. She's walking up, you know, I know. She's just gigantic. And they are all having tons of fun with her. All the older dogs are. And Z thinks that her, that is her puppy. And so, yeah, that's my current household. Yes. I do have a household full of girls and they do all get along.

Melissa Breau: That's awesome. So let's talk a little bit about the adding new puppy dog thing, if that's okay. So what personality factors do you consider or kind of think about when you're looking at adding a new puppy or dog to your household?

Loretta Mueller: That's a great question, Melissa. I think that it's really important to always take the dogs in your household into account when you're looking at getting a puppy. I'm always going to take their personalities into account. So are they dominant? Are they more chill? Are they neutral? Are they reactive? Do they have anxiety? Things like that? Do they like puppies? Do they dislike puppies?

As an example, I have one dog, even she is not a fan of puppies. Really never wanted any puppies after she came into the household. And so that kind of presented some challenges when I was getting Queso into the group. And then also, you know, what are my goals with the new puppy?

I personally always get puppies, even though I'm not a huge puppy fan because, you know, they require a lot of work. And I like my. My dogs that are house trained and kennel trained and all that stuff, but I'm looking at what I want my puppy to be like, and I want to raise them myself. So I pretty much always get stuck with a puppy. And as I like things done a very certain way, I want the dogs to grow up on my household and understand the rules.

That doesn't mean I don't ever bring dogs in. Cause I do foster. And with foster dogs, you've got to really think about, um, you know, what you're looking at as an older dog. So their temperament, their drive level, again, whether they're chill, dominant, those kinds of things. It can be a little bit tougher if the dog is a rescue or re home, as it can take a while for their true personality to come out and really see how they mesh, because some dogs will come into the household really shy and quiet, and then suddenly, after about a month in, they're like, hey, this is pretty amazing, and maybe I can take over the world.

And so, you know, you try to get a good feel for the puppy or the dog that you're bringing in the household, and hopefully it matches really well with the other dogs in the household. It's always a little bit of a question mark. Um, but, for example, I would not bring something that is reactive into my household just because I don't have a reactive household except for even.

But I'll talk a little bit more about even special reactivity in a little bit, so. But, yeah, see, that's. That's a big one. A lot of people are like, oh, these are my goals, and this is the kind of puppy I want, and this is what I'm looking at. And they kind of forget about the other dogs in the household. And most of the time, I usually say, you know, it's, if you have a female, it's better to get a male, that type of thing. I did not follow my own advice, and again, I have all girls, but they all get along really well because their base personalities are pretty comparable.

Melissa Breau: Okay, so we talked about personality. What other things do you like to have in place? Like what management tools, maybe do you like to kind of have in place before you bring home a new addition?

Loretta Mueller: I have tons of baby gates everywhere to section off the house if needed, and that's usually just for the puppy, but it's also to keep my adult dogs.

I want them to have a safe space for themselves so that they're not constantly bombarded by puppy antics. Even my youngest border collie, Z, who absolutely adores the puppy, does. After a few weeks, she kind of wants a little bit of alone time, and I think that that's completely reasonable. I also want to make sure that the puppy has good boundaries as far as potty training and not getting themselves into trouble, stuff like that.

So I'm definitely going to have lots of puppy gates, um, x pens so the puppy can play and learn how to, um, I guess, you know, self entertain and again, keep the puppy contained so they can, you know, not form bad habits. Um, I'm also going to have a crate, of course, when I cannot watch puppies or I need to get something accomplished. Uh, collar harnesses and a leash, of course. And then, um, I also try to make it so I have extra time to devote to the new addition so the other dogs aren't put off. And a ton of patience is definitely going to be required.

Melissa Breau: Whether you're bringing in a puppy or a foster dog or an older dog, are there skills that you want to work on, you know, kind of refresh or, you know, focus on with your existing dogs before you bring home a new dog? And then, you know, as you talk about this, can you maybe talk about why so kind of what problems you're hoping to prevent.

Loretta Mueller: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So before the puppy comes home or the dog comes home, I'm going to really ramp up my training with things like sharing resources. So sharing me, um, taking treats individually, not stealing toys, things like that. I don't normally allow that, but, you know, when you, when you kind of get into that zone of having dogs that are trained, you'll let some of that kind of slide, and that's going to get tightened up a little bit.

Impulse control, door manners. I don't need anybody squished or slammed, especially thinking about, like, Queso size compared to my border collies. I want to make sure that my dogs are having good door manners. Stationing on beds, waiting for their turn to train. Calm in the crates manners, again with toys, treats, things like that. General obedience and listening skills. Because the goal, when I bring the puppy home, I assume that some of those behaviors are going to backslide, right.

I expect there to be jealousy. I expect there to be some, you know, but, mom, pay attention to me. It's my turn. I want to make sure I get attention and treats and toys and all that stuff. And so I don't want to be having to work on training my adult dogs while I'm trying to teach the new dog or puppy because then it just gets a bit crazy and that's where the chaos comes in.

Melissa Breau: Yeah, there's going to be adjustments.

Loretta Mueller: Right. Um, but in general, I want the behaviors of my current dogs to support the training that I need to do with the younger dog or the puppy and not go against it and not automatically teach the younger dog or any dog or puppy bad behaviors like, oh, I can get away with this because the older dogs are doing it. Because if people say that they don't pick that up, that is ridiculous because puppies learn so much and dogs learn so much from each other.

And so if you're trying to train, for example, if I had to try to retrain all three of my dogs while I brought the puppy in. That is the epitome of mayhem, and I do not want that. So that's going to be my goal, is to really make sure that my dogs that are in the house currently are up to. Up to par, and I don't get a puppy until I know for a fact that I'm going to be doing that.

So as an example, let's say I've got a puppy coming in next week and I've got a dog that's giving me issues, then what I would do is I would just not introduce that puppy to my group until I've got that issue solved and back on the right track.

Melissa Breau: Gotcha. And it sounds like it's even more complex when you have the more dogs you kind of have, the more you kind of have to think about that then, right?

Loretta Mueller: Oh, absolutely. Everything's bigger and there's more feelings and there's less impulse control. Right. It's the behavior in numbers situation. The dogs. One goes crazy because there's a neighbor and they want to bark at it. Very rarely do the other dogs go, nah, I'm not going to join in. I think I'm just going to hang out here on the bed and do nothing. They don't. They all join in.

They all want to sing the songs of their people all the time, and I want to make sure that I'm not fighting against that because the only way to go from there is to go back to each individual dog. And it's so much easier if three out of four dogs are solid and you just have to work on the one.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about how you handle introductions? I know, you know, with your current little one, we're talking about some big size differences. So did you consider anything additional because of that?

Loretta Mueller: Absolutely. Yeah. So I did have a Jack Russell terrier before I got this Pom quite a few years ago, and I remember how small he was, but she's actually smaller than him. And so I'm really proud to say that I have not injured her by sitting on her or stepping on her.

I'm really proud of that fact. It's been kind of a bit of an adjustment for me just learning how to shuffle again and look down. But, yeah, when you're looking at something that's. She came home at two pounds, and the smallest dog I have is 33 pounds. And some people are going to have an even bigger size discrepancy. You do have to be careful, not necessarily because the bigger dogs are going to intentionally hurt a little dog, but just something simple and small as, you know, a paw hitting them in normal play, that could send a little puppy across the hallway or into a wall or something.

So we don't want that to happen. So I am very careful, and it was very careful with supervision and stuff. But I love to do parallel walking. It helps everyone kind of get used to each other. So that's one of the first things I did when I got case of home. I will I put her on leash, obviously, because she didn't have any skills at that point other than looking cute, which she was very good at.

And I had her leashed, and then the older dogs were off leash, and that way they can get away from it if they need to. So I started it in the backyard. So just in case. She's a pretty friendly puppy, so just in case she ran up to them and they did not want her advances, then they were able to move off in a safe way because it can be very pressuring.

So I did a lot of that parallel walking. Um, I also had the puppy in their main crate crating area, and it was. She was in an ex pen, just they could get used to her with even, because I said even is a bit reactive, so even is not reactive to any dogs that leave her alone. But she has definitely reacted to excessively friendly dogs, and there is some warning, but it's only about a second.

And unfortunately, her corrections are not always the nicest and fairest. And so with her, I spent some extra time just letting her smell things that the puppy had been laying on, and she could hear the puppy and see the puppy with a gate between them, but she wasn't actually allowed to go right up to the puppy's ex pen or crate again, just to make sure that everybody was kept comfortable.

And again, I want everyone's face to be protected. My older dogs, your reactive dogs, your timid dogs, they need to have their space protected as well as your puppy. And I want to make sure that all of that's done. And then, you know, with size differences, I really started working with that, with Queso on the couch with me when and Z would come up to play. So Z was extremely excited, and she would, if she could speak English, tell you that this puppy is absolutely hers, was purchased for her, was brought home for her, and it is the bestest thing ever, which is great, except she's ten times its size.

And so her exuberance was a little intense. I don't know if anybody's familiar with the Looney Tunes commercial or the Looney Tuner show with the abominable snowman and Bugs Bunny, where he pats bugs bunny on the head, but it kind of would have been that situation where she just would have smushed the puppy into the ground, and I just didn't want that. So I set it up for success.

So Queso was with me on the couch. Z was tired. She had had a full day of training. She had a full day of physical and mental exercise. Figured I better set her up on the right foot. And then I was right there to distract if things got too much. There was no correction or anything. It was just a matter of, oh, here, look, play with this toy, or, oh, would you like a cookie?

Just to help keep her settled. Queso was just too small to really do anything damaging to Z. That was not my concern. So it was more just making sure she was safe. And then, you know, they were allowed to play through the ex pen. They were allowed to play through the crate, which she did a lot of with her. She used to lay by the crate, and they play bitey, face, and stuff like that.

And so there's lots of lower key interactions just to make sure that Z was going to be okay and understood the boundaries which I was laying out very specifically for her. So she knew, okay, I can't just come up and smack the puppy in the head. I can't lay on the puppy. I can't try to grab the puppy by their face and drag them across the living room.

All those things were options for her, as I had seen her do them with bigger dogs. So I went under the assumption that behaviors might try to come up and some of them did, but I was able to distract and redirect, and so that was kind of my goal. I still control their play. I'm still always supervising. Do not allow them to interact without supervision. That's just, to me, not something I'm ready to do yet, because although they are getting along really, really well, and Z is amazingly good with her, it's my responsibility with that kind of size difference.

And so I want to make sure that things stay safe for the little girl. That way, we don't have any issues. And then also, you know, when I was working with the puppy, I also really wanted to create a positive association. So the dogs weren't tense, they weren't jealous. They were happy. And so when the puppy was out, the dogs got a lot of really good things. They got bully sticks, they got treats, they got new toys, things like that.

My goal was to really build up the positive associations with the puppy to prevent jealousy. And I really focused on that the first couple weeks, and it went really well. The dogs accepted her, and they started looking forward to, as soon as they would see me pull her out of the crate, they would all rush over to me to interact, which is exactly what I'm looking for, and interacting without blocking nothing, trying to get in between me and the puppy or try to, you know, get in the space.

There's a difference between a dog that comes up and they're like, hey, what are you up to? Versus a dog that comes up to you, and it's like, okay, why is the puppy out? I don't know what to do. What do you want me to do? I'm really anxious, and I don't feel good about this. And so that was my big, big goal, was to build that positive association with the puppy, and it's working out really well so far.

Melissa Breau: That's awesome. Can you talk a little bit about what's, you know, kind of normal and fine in terms of dog, dog communication and maybe what is, um, I likely to escalate kind of what those early signs are and what requires maybe human intervention? I know you kind of teased talking about even earlier.

Loretta Mueller: Yeah. So I really go into depth on this in class because I really, I want people to, when they take the class, they need to be able to assess their dog's temperaments and how they respond to things and really get a feel for what's normal and what's not normal.

I don't think that assuming that a multi dog household includes dogs that are completely harmonious and peaceful and there's no conversations or anything at any time. It's just not realistic. They're going to have conversations, they're going to have communication. And so it's important to understand there's going to be things that you're going to have to deal with. But the goal is going to be a simple correction. A little growl from an adult dog, you know, should be enough to back the puppy off, right.

I'm looking for something like that. Fair puppy does have to learn what's acceptable. And if an adult dog isn't fair with communication, it's my job to support that interaction. So that's where I said I was going to come back with evens. So even as I mentioned before, she does not like puppies and she does not like dogs that come into her space. She's not the type to start a fight, but she will finish it, and I do not want her finishing it on my puppy.

So I was very cognizant of that. She does show some warning signs. They're about a second long and then she gets very upset. And the problem with when she corrects is that she does not correct and then let go of it. So that would be the goal. A dog that's fair with their correction is going to say, I do not want you doing that, please stop. And as soon as the dog or puppy stops, the dog that corrected is going to calm down and go back to that baseline of just, you know, feeling comfortable.

And it should happen pretty quickly. Even does not do that, even likes to correct and then continue to correct and correct some more if available. And so it's my job to make sure that she does not. Number one, she's not put in that situation, right, because I know that about her temperament. Number two, I will make sure that, um, if that situation happens to come up, because sometimes things happen, right, then I'm going to intervene immediately.

So if that means, you know, possibly distracting, splitting up the dogs, um, sometimes that means, you know, working on a particular skill that allows things to go more smoothly. So a solid recall. I've been working on that with Queso from the time she came home at eight weeks. She will call off any dog at this stage. I'm sure when she hits adolescent, that will all go down the drain and we will have to revisit that.

But as of right now, she can call off. So when she is running around, let's say, playing with Zee in the living room and even is laying in a bed, and for some reason she's playing with Zee and all of a sudden she has a squirrel moment. Oh, what's that? She goes over towards Even. Even looks and starts feeling like she's going to be invaded. I can call Queso away and then give her reinforcement.

If Queso continues to go, I will immediately go in and block pick up, and that way that interaction is limited. I've only had that happen one time, and I was able to call Queso away because I've been working on recalls. So again, she's never allowed to be unsupervised and even older dogs until they've been in the house for quite a while, several months. I'm not going to allow that type of play to happen unsupervised. I just do not do that because there's too many things that can happen and accidents happen, and we just do not want that to happen at all. If possible.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit? We hear this term kind of a pinch point or a pressure point or something like that. Can you talk a little bit about what that maybe is and why it matters? Yeah. So a pinch point.

Loretta Mueller: I was thinking about this the other day. I kind of like to think of it as like a tube of toothpaste with the cap open. So, like, it's a, it's an area in the home or maybe in the backyard or in whatever spaces the dogs habitate that the dogs gather and then they have to exit. So think of the, the bottom of the tube, and if you take the toothpaste and you squish it up and there's no cap on, the toothpaste goes flying out of the, of the container.

So hallways, corners, feeding areas, crating areas, beds, places where the dogs gather, that there's pressure, meaning there's a smaller space and that there's more. It's more likely for conflict to possibly occur. And so for most dog owners, again, a very common pinch point is the front door. When I was talking on our alumni group, asking about common issues that we have with multi dog households, that was a big one.

So dogs like to bust out of the front door. Right. So whether that's a good idea or not, I personally feel like it's not because we don't really want them busting out onto an environment that we maybe, you know, the neighbors walking a dog or whatever we've got going on or just, you know, running over each other. Um, because dogs have a tendency to do that when they're going through a pinch point.

They try to move as quickly as they can through it to get away from it. So we don't want them to be doing that. But the front door is a big one. Um, they're just busting out to try to get away from the pressure of the other dogs, which, again, causes issues. Dogs getting ran over, dogs not listening, escalation issues, emotional issues. So dogs getting out and nipping the other dogs coming out common and herding, dogs trying to control all the motion, chasing each other, biting, all that kind of stuff, things that we just do not want and contribute to chaos.

And so in the class we do work in, each person's on the Gold threads anyway, each person's individual home, as much as they're comfortable with. I don't need like a, you know, inside view of their house, but people have drawn pictures and all kinds, things like that. But they will give me an idea of what's going on in their house and then identify those pinch points if they're a big issue, and then how we can mitigate that, how we can use training.

So, as an example, if dogs like to bust out of the front door, we work on door manners. So each dog is released according to their name or however they want to be released verbally, as long as you're consistent. And then they go, say, to a stationing area where they go straight to a bed or straight to possibly a manner's minder to work on different behaviors that they're not thinking, okay, I'm going to chase the next dog coming out, or they go into downstays.

So we look into what's going to work for each individual group of dogs, and that's going to be a big thing. There's a lot of times that pinch points will cause trigger stacking throughout the day for dogs. They're trying to get down the hallway and that really bothers them. And then the next time they go towards the hallway, they get more anxious. And eventually there, there's an issue, there's an emotional outbreak, whether a dog gets cranky and nips or whatever.

And that is actually due to a lot of these pinch points that are just naturally building up in the dogs throughout the day. And then it seems like if you're not paying attention to the pinch point areas, all of a sudden a dog is just very cranky and very reactive. And in reality, it's been building up all day. And so that's what a pinch point is. And we have to really look at those with multi dog households.

Melissa Breau: Are there special things that you think about when it comes to resources in the home, when you're talking about multi dogs? So things that are maybe likely to be high value. How do you handle that?

Loretta Mueller: Yeah, so resource guarding is another big, big deal. And high resource items are not allowed to be free range in the household unless the animals are not guarding. So I. I believe in possession is.

If you possess it, it's yours. As long as it's not something of mine. I'll put it that way, because he has a sock issue that. That she's been working on. She's on detox right now. She's doing pretty good. But, um. But as long as they're not guarding stuff, then higher stuff, higher value stuff can happen. But if a dog comes up and the dog, let's say one of my dogs has a bully stick and another dog comes up and wants that bully stick, that's not acceptable.

They're not allowed to take things from others. And I work on that in class because I feel like that if you have it, you should be able to keep it, unless I take it from you. And I don't allow bullying. So if the dogs are not doing any of that great higher value stuff can be out. But most of the time, there's always one. If you have multi dogs, there's always one that's got a special, you know, love for tennis balls.

Or sometimes they'll pick inanimate objects, like a couch or you or a bed, those kinds of things. So with the high value stuff like bully sticks and toys, those things are only allowed in certain situations. And I will also work a lot on the dog's individual impulse control around high value things so that I, you know, I'm gonna also, I'm gonna have a protocol for dogs that start resource guarding so I can get them very early in the process, so I can redirect them and teach them what the appropriate behavior would be.

So, as an example, my dogs all have a little game that we play. It's called I found dis, which means I found something very amazing. Normally disgusting, unfortunately, and I wish it was like I found this hundred dollar bill. That would be amazing. But that's not what it is. It's. I found this dead chipmunk, I found this dead snake, worm, whatever, inappropriate, nasty kleenex on the side of the road.

And they get to trade for me because I don't what they'll do. You'll see them, right? They get this precious little thing and then they go and get guardian weird and run around. And what most people do is they try to go get it from the dog. And then what does that do? The dog runs away further and then they try to eat it faster. Right. And so I want to eliminate that.

So my dogs have a really good, I found this game. They bring me stuff. It's really handy in the spring because we pick up a lot of trash along the side of the road. They're very good about that. And the puppies already figured this out. And the other day she did bring me a baby snake. Oh. Which was a very nice of her. What a special present. It was a very special present and it was alive.

And luckily in Minnesota we don't have venomous snakes, so I'm very happy about that. But she did find it. And of course, the other three border collies, like, immediately wanted to see what the precious was. And luckily, because of the game, I said, oh, you found this? They all sat. And I was able to trade the snake. And I did trade it and screamed and threw it behind me and we just ran forward and it was a little bit of a moment where I had a lot of feelings, but everybody else was like, yeah, they found this game cool.

So those are little things that I do to try to get the dogs used to giving up things that they really like. And I'm always going to have lots of cookies on me and stuff like that. So my dogs, for the record, do also do a lot of off leash hiking. So that's, that's why we do have that game. Um, you know, so I really work a lot on sharing resources and me being, I guess, the controller of the resources.

That way the other dogs don't feel like they have to step up to police anybody. And so we go through a lot of that stuff because I would say most dogs that are, or most groups of dogs that are in the multi dog class, there's some sort of resource guarding, which is extremely normal. Right. It's a resource. There are other dogs that might take it, therefore I need to guard it.

Very normal. Some dogs are way worse than others, right. Depending on breed specificity and all that kind of stuff. But, um, we're looking at, you know, creating a harmonious place where the dog can freely bring you things and trade for something of high value. That's a big one.

Melissa Breau: So I think what probably the biggest question that I see when people are thinking about adding a dog to their household is maybe the difference that they should expect when going, say, from one dog to two or going from two dogs to three or kind of more. Right. So what are the differences that you tend to see when people kind of go from that first dog to a second dog or from two dogs to three dogs?

Loretta Mueller: You know, I think going from, I think going from one dog to two dogs is, it's definitely a lot, but I think the big jump happens when you go to three dogs because then you have, like, if you just have two dogs and say that they don't like each other moderately, you can kind of give them space.

Right. The house has enough areas that hopefully, and it's not that hard to work on the two dogs together. When you add that third dog in, there's a greater, much greater chance, exponentially, a much greater chance for things to fall apart with your training. So there's just three times the feelings of three times the drive, more reactivity, more changes, you know, or more chances for training to fall apart.

It's going to happen and things are going to fall apart. So if, you know, people come into this with the expectation that I'm going to bring a new dog or a new puppy into my group, and everything is going to be harmonious and everything's going to be perfect and wonderful, and we're all going to get along and it's going to be magical. That's a little bit too optimistic.

There's going to be something that goes wrong. Not saying I'm negative about it, but you have to be realistic. Right. So, you know, the focus that's required from a dog living alone versus a dog living with two other roommates is a lot less. Right. So you've got to, as you add each dog, there's a shift in the dynamics. And if you add the fact that most sports people don't neuter or spay their dogs, you also have the dynamics of heat cycles and testosterone surges and weird hormone things that are going on.

Right. And so you add that into the mix. You've got a lot of complex things that can be happening, and dogs do a ton of communication, nonverbal. So if you're not paying attention really closely, you can miss a lot of little things, like a dog going down the hallway, kind of given some side eye, right? Oh, nobody saw that. And if you don't see it, those kinds of things start off little and then they become a bigger issue, right.

With the dynamic shifts. Just like people remember, dogs don't love every dog they meet. Some dogs take longer to warm up than other dogs. I would be a, if I was a dog, I would be selectively social, as they call it. I'm not loving on everybody and hugging on everyone. I am selectively social. It takes me a little while to warm up. And so that would be how I would greet.

Whereas somebody else is going to just be very boisterous. Some people are going to be more wallflower and just feel very overwhelmed by the environment. And so you have to look at those dynamics as well. And, um, remember to. Certain breeds are better in groups you can really look at. So, like, a lot. For example, a lot of border collies, for the most part, will get along with other border collies.

Um, and then you look at dogs that are not as well known for doing that. So, for example, like I, my Jack Russell Terrier, he was awesome. He was a lovely dog. He was super friendly. He was very dog social until he thought I was correcting one of my dogs for something inappropriate. And then his terrier mentality took over and he's like, yo, mom, I will help you.

I will help you take care of that. I am. I am on your side and I'm like, okay, that's a lot. Whereas the border collies natural tendency is just to kind of go, oh, conflict. I'm going to back away from that. So we have to think about that as well. Whether you're the breed of dog that you have is good in big groups or not. And so some dogs that have certain behaviors, it's really tough having them in a multi dog situation. So you just have to be aware of that and understand that. So you have to really think ahead about what things are going to look like realistically when you add another dog or puppy into that mix.

Melissa Breau: So we kind of mentioned it once or twice in there, but you've got the class coming up on that, on this stuff, technically recording. So the first is started today. Can you share a little bit more about what you're covering in the class and maybe who might be interested in joining you?

Absolutely. So I want to make sure Denise knows that it wasn't my fault that we're recording it. It was just, it was a technicality. We recorded it earlier and then it just didn't take. So Denise is going to be like, oh, Loretta. I know she's going to, oh, Loretta. So I just want you to know, Denise, that's not the truth. I promise. So, yeah. So in my multi dog mayhem class, it's designed to make you more aware of how your individual dogs interact.

Okay? So the first week is going to be a lot of analysis. Each dog analyzing each dog, what they're doing, how their behaviors are, what their temperament is, realistically, what their temperament is. Right. We all know we have the greatest dogs, but what we have to do is we have to look at our dogs from a point of view of another dog trainer looking at our dogs. A great example.

When people come into my house, everyone loves and adores, Even, everyone. They're like, she's the sweetest, most adorable, most just, oh, she's just the best. And I'm like, she is with people. She really is with other dogs. She turns into a little bit of a demon. Right. And so you have to be able to go, oh, yeah, okay, I've got that. That makes sense. And so it's important that you know that because then we can go from that analysis to what behaviors we need to train so that the dogs individually are not causing chaos.

Right. We need to make sure we know how to regain order in the house when the chaos has been lost and how to support dog owners through those changes as they add new members into their group. And a lot of times it's also, you know, just backing up and working on each individual dog skills. And so that's going to be the goal. We also discuss management. What is normal in multi dog households?

What's not normal in multi dog households? You know, anybody who wants to get a better idea of dog behavior, a calmer home, thinking about adding a new dog or puppy. Like, I've got one. It's kind of cool. I've got a Gold right now that isn't going to get her puppy for the next four days, which I've never had. It's awesome. Usually I get, oh, I've got a puppy and my whole house has turned into, you know, chaos, which I get.

I've done it before. It's not fun, but this person is awesome. She's going to get a puppy in four days and we're already going to be working on behaviors so she knows what behaviors are solid so she can integrate the puppy into, and she's going to know what behaviors are not solidified so that we can keep puppy out of that until we've got that behavior nailed down. It's really fun because you're going to see a lot of different breeds interacting, and breeds specifically can have very different dialects with their body language and their behavior.

And it's fascinating to watch. A great example is so Queso, who's a Pomeranian, has been watching Zenith do her stocky thing because she's a border collie. She's a working bred border collie, and Queso has started stocking toys, which is, yeah, I'm like, not a pomeranian behavior, but she's doing it. And you will watch her stock a toy, look over at Z, and then continue stalking. So it's. We see a lot of that in this class as well, where you've got dogs with, you know, different genetic backgrounds, and they're both.

They're both dogs, but they communicate differently, and so you'll see a lot of that. So it's just a really fun class to really get an idea of dog behavior and nonverbal communication and how to interrupt poor behavior patterns, you know, not for specific sports, just so that you can enjoy your life in your house and not have dogs, you know, all over you and running around and fighting and all that stuff. Nobody wants that type of chaos. So it's a cool class. I'm excited about really diving into it, and I'm excited about the first day.

Melissa Breau: I know typically at FDSA, we're pretty strict about kind of limiting gold and silver students to kind of one handler and one dog. Can you talk a little bit about how you handle that for this class, since it's a multi dog class?

Loretta Mueller: Yeah. So I definitely want the entire group as part of it. I like to think of the challenges as layers. And so what we have to do is the first thing we have to do is identify and assess each dog and figure out a which dog is causing the most chaos. Sometimes that can be a little tough, but we have the, I call it the ugly video that happens during the first week, which is actually my favorite video for the gold students.

It's probably the most nerve wracking video for them because they don't like seeing all the ick. And for me, it's fascinating because I get to see all the interactions with the dogs, and I can figure out pretty quickly just through my background, which dog is causing the most issues. And that's going to be the dog that we normally really hone in on if we have quite a few with, you know, several things going on at once.

If we have, you know, an adult dog and we've got a puppy coming in, we're going to look at the. The weaknesses of the adult dog, where we want to beef up the obedience or impulse control, and then we also want to look at the assessment of the puppy and see how to best interact and kind of integrate them together. But, yes, the goal is to have a plan that includes getting all the dogs together eventually.

So, for example, if you have a really, really highly excitable, impulsive dog and we're working on door manners, right? And you have, say, four other highly impulsive dogs, you can't just throw all five dogs at the door and expect it to, you know, go well. It's not going to go well. I'll tell you that. I'm not psychic. I just know it's not going to go well. So what you do is you say, okay, I have the crazy one.

I can say that because I have Z. Z is pretty crazy. I have the crazy one, and I have this dog that's a bit older. She's an eight year old, and she's still impulsive, but she's less impulsive. That would be my first dog to add into door manners. Right. And then you slowly work your way up to the dogs that are going to be a lot more challenging.

And that's really what I want people to do, is think in terms of lumping. And one of the gals, I think, in a previous class said, you know, in order to do this right, you really have to become not a lumper. You want to become a splitter, but we don't want to lump. You want to become a splitter. And so she's like, I learned very specifically how to split up behaviors and split up layers of challenges so that the dogs were not overwhelmed.

And it really made the process easier because she started to learn exactly which dog she needed to pull and say, okay, this is a dog we're going to use for a level one challenge. This is a dog we're going to use for a level two challenge and then work her way up. And it made her overall, a better trainer, even when she was doing her sports work. And so, you know, the goal is to dive into their dog's behavior, all the dogs, so that we can get a cohesive group and involves every dog being non chaotic. And that's our goal with the class.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. All right, any final thoughts or maybe key points you kind of want to leave folks with?

Loretta Mueller: Yeah, I mean, there's. There are many things you can do and train to have a calm and non chaotic multi dog household. A lot of people, when they come to this class, they're just very overwhelmed and they're just like, everybody's going crazy and everyone's.

This one bites this one when they leave the door, and this one's doing this and we've got this one and they're all howling and, you know, and I understand that. I totally get that because I did used to have that, and I don't have that anymore because I'm very methodical with how I introduce my dogs and how I'm training my dogs for a multi dog household. I don't think I've had one dog since 2001.

I'm currently at four. I've had as many as seven. And so lots of dogs in my house is normal, and it's okay. The biggest thing is you can use your training to be proactive so that you can really work on getting those issues under control before they start. And if you haven't done that because you didn't know how to, or you're overwhelmed or you got a dog that didn't fit your normal, you know, mold for the kinds of dogs you normally get, that's okay.

We just have to back up. And again, you split things up, you add challenges or layers little by little, and you will get to a peaceful house that is going to be much nicer to go into. And, you know, as an example, my dogs do bark when someone comes to the house. I have no problem with that. I would like to know if someone's coming to my house, that's totally fine.

But my dogs just have enough commands. And I say enough and thank you. And when I say enough and I say thank you, they're like, got it. She's been alerted. And the thank you is actually, they all go lay in beds. So I've just taught them that, you know, I appreciate that you are letting me know someone's at the house. And now we're done. You're done. Alarming. Now we're all going to go inside.

And so it's just a matter of understanding that anybody can do this. It's going to be just behavior modification, and that's going to be our goal. And so we just try to split it up so it's not so overwhelming.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Awesome. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Loretta.

Loretta Mueller: Yeah. Thank you very much for having me, as always. I had a wonderful time.

Melissa Breau: Me, too. All right. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We will be back next week with Angelica Steinker to talk about handling dogs with hearing and vision impairments. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy.

Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by Bensound.com. the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

 Credits

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!