Tips for a Peaceful Multi-Dog Home

Having a multi-dog home can come with many wonderful benefits, but also more headaches.  On the plus side, your dogs might be best friends and playmates. They provide lots of mental stimulation and exercise for each other. That’s a big win! 

On the other hand, you may have challenges that single-dog homes don’t.  Scuffles over toys or food, increased barking, fighting over your attention… there can be a lot to manage.  Sometimes you might wonder if getting that second (or third, or fourth) dog was such a good idea. 

In this week’s Facebook live in our free support group, we discussed some approaches to keeping peace in multi-dog homes.  We talked about training you can do with your dogs, including “go to place” training. We touched on how to train with multiple dogs at once more safely. But we also cover what are (in my opinion) the simplest, lowest-labor solutions to problem behaviors in multi-dog homes: namely, to separate your dogs in problem situations.  This might be enough by itself to return your household to harmonious living!

 We’d love to hear from you. Do you use gates, pens, or crates in your multi-dog home to separate dogs at potentially problematic times like meal times?  Have you run into trouble trying to separate your dogs? What have you found most helpful in your own multi-dog household? 

If you have questions about setting up confinement areas, or how to help your dogs become more comfortable being in a confinement area, check out our free Zen Zone guide and the associated videos for tips.