Q: I have been reading your articles for the past few months and I have enjoyed them immensely. There is a bit of advice that I have to dispute. I have 7 dogs, they all live in the house with us. They vary in age and temperament. I have never had a problem with my younger dogs bonding more with the other dogs than with humans.
Could you please tell me who or what has decided that dogs will bond more with other dogs if left alone together? Perhaps something we are doing is preventing this as we spend all non-working hours training, socializing, and excercising our dogs as a pack. Could this be why? Please let me know what caused you to come to that particular conclusion. Thanks so much.
A: I haven't had the problem with my dogs, either, because each dog gets a great deal of training/bonding/grooming/etc. time as an individual with me. What does cause the problem, though, is when dogs are never separated from each other (separate crates are important), never given extensive one-on-one interaction with a person, and the "significant other" in the dog's life is another dog. Dogs will reach the point that they come completely unglued when separated from that other dog.
People think they're doing a kindness when they get two puppies at the same time, or add a second dog to a single dog who is receiving too little attention, because they feel that the other dog will make up for the lack of human companionship. If you provide the needed human interaction time for each dog, then keeping them together a lot can work. My three dogs live together, and each of them stops interacting with the other dogs to listen to me when I speak to them.
This is absolutely possible with owners who put in the work on each individual dog. It's more likely that most people will do this if they space the dogs so that the last dog to join the family is trained and well integrated into the pack before adding the next dog. But there are exceptions, people who are dedicated enough to put in the massive amounts of time it takes to properly raise multiple puppies at once.
Tiffs between dogs depend on a number of factors, including sex, breed, intact or altered, the space available to the dogs, the ages of the dogs, the exact personalities of the dogs--even factors such as what they can see and hear through a fence that could cause one of them to become overstimulated and redirect aggression at a packmate. Again, these things are often managed quite well by knowledgeable and highly dedicated owners, but the average person seeking advice about adding another dog to the family needs to know the risks involved in order to make an informed decision.