Dog Training Community

I appreciate so much that you personally answer all your questions. I have no doubt you have a great understanding of dog training. But how would you suggest training 3 dogs? Am I suppossed to seperate them individually for sessions? The hardest bridge I have to cross is that on their own, they are fine, together, a mess.  I have a very hard time getting them to act on what they already know when they are around each other

Hi Jess,

Training multiple dogs can be fun or really frustrating.

I always recommend spending time working individually in multiple dog households. With my three dogs, I take them on walks individually sometimes to work on behaviors such as leash walking and off leash control. I also think they enjoy a bit of quality one-on-one time.

It is always ideal for dogs to be comfortable in other rooms alone so you can work with the other dog without barking interruptions. You can also put dogs outside, if you have a yard and work with the other dog.

You can also work up to more advanced strategies such as what I do with my dogs. I have them all stay and call one dog to perform a task while the other two maintain the stay. Then, I send the one dog back with the others, call another and work with him. This has taken a lot of time to get to this point, but it was fun.

A product that you might enjoy is a DVD by Patricia McConnell and it talks about multiple dog household strategies.

Just finished listening to a few of your radio shows including one about Multiple Dogs http://www.blogtalkradio.com/MillmanMethod/2008/03/07/Multiple-Dog-Household-Tips and listening to everything we've done wrong. Foremost among our erros, we got three dogs at the exact same time. These Labrador Retrievers were all medical or personality dropouts from a disability dogs program so at least they were not puppies (all one year olds) and they had all been socialized (but zero training). Althought it was very foolish, we were lucky; all three immediately got along and truly love each other. They are not well trained but we are without children, have a large yard, no visitors, and we don't demand perfection. There is no fighting or food aggression and they are all five now so we must be doing something right. But it is nearly impossible to train them - they desperately want to be together and get very jealous (the only time they are jealous) if one of them gets time with one of us separate and apart. Two things I heard from your programs that I'll pick up on is additional exercise (physical and mental) and just struggle ahead with separate training as I can. There are only two behaviours that we really need to correct. One of these is one of our girls, Panda, who does demand attention barking (to play) when the other two and my wife and I are in settling down mode -- impossible to work on as the other two dogs engage the moment we try. Our approach is just to work outside of the specific problem and engage Panda more generally and give her more exercise apart from her two "sisters" - for example, I am starting an obedience class with her next week and she likes to walk on our treadmill (a one dog process). The second problem, and the reason for this wind up is, one of our other girls, Naimh, whines in the morning before our alarm to have her breakfast and then whines at night to go to bed. The dogs sleep with us. Anyone have suggestions, given the multiple dog circumstances, on how to approach this issue? (We are clueless except for giving in.)

First of all, thanks for listening to my shows and your question. To me it sounds like you have done a lot right and you should be commended for it. You obviously care about your dogs and are trying to do what is best for them.

As far as your question, you should read this post about demand behaviors and let me know if you have questions after that. I think it will answer your questions, but if not, let me know.