Looking for practical advice, whether for the dog training, management, or training myself as the human.
I have two dogs, one is 10 months one is 3 years, and we moved last month. Unfortunately it seems the move has unsettled them both. We are a two human, 2 dog household.
The 10 month old has terrible separation anxiety from me specifically. I WFH, and my partner works outside of the home.
– If my partner is home and I leave, he whimpers a little but is mostly fine.
– If my partner isn’t home, and I leave with the other dog, he fully panics. He will bark at a panic-volume continuously for hours…
He also barks at other dogs on walks, this behavior isn’t new and we’ve been working on it. Regressed a bit with the move, but he’s a lot better than he used to be. Trainer believes it’s a breed behavior and not fear.
On the other hand, the 3 year old dog has developed reactivity towards old ladies. We live on the same dead end street as 2 old folks homes, and our condo population is very elderly. Also, he has started reacting towards other dogs IF he is on a walk with our other dog. They then feed off of each other.
Individually, the training plan is straight forward for each dog/issue. But managing both dogs when my partner isn’t home is becoming significantly overwhelming for me. He’s gone for ~10 hours at a time.
As of now, I can’t leave my younger dog alone without leaving the older dog with him. But, I shouldn’t walk both dogs at the same time, because it makes the older dog’s reactivity worse, and risks making the younger dog start reacting to things the older dog reacts to. Plus, it feels irresponsible as a not-very-strong woman to be walking two reactive dogs at the same time. The younger is 25 lbs the older is 70 lbs. So I end up just, not walking the older dog until my partner gets home. Which isn’t a good solution. Especially if my husband needs to go on a trip some day, and he should be able to have bathroom breaks.
Mostly it’s just that I’ve been feeling terrible because everything I do with my dogs ends up with barking and the dogs feeling terrible, my neighbors probably hate us, which is overwhelming for me, and I feel like this has been making me hate spending time with my dogs… I feel terrible for thinking that.
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