Thinking about getting a dog. What do I need to know?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We’ve been thinking about adding a dog to the mix around here. We are a family of four, including a 9 year old and a 5 year old. The 9yo in particular is very keen on getting a dog. We also have two adult cats - one is approximately 11, the other is 2ish.

We own a home and will be here indefinitely. Our yard is not fenced. Putting in a fence is an option, but obviously an expensive one. We are within a few blocks of a couple of parks that are good for outdoor play. The 9yo kid is responsible enough to take a dog for a couple of walks each day.

No one is home during the day three days per week, for approximately 10 hours each day.

Questions: How do we find a dog that will get along with the cats? Are there particular breeds or types of dogs that should be avoided? My vet once told me that a retired greyhound would not be a good idea. Is the local Humane Society likely to be a good place to go? Our cats have always sort of appeared in our lives - I’ve never really set out to get a pet before. Where else should I think about looking? I’d prefer not to get a puppy as I’d like a dog that is already potty trained and slightly less destructive. Is it reasonable to look for a 1-2 year old? Given the number of kids and cats around here already, I don’t think we have the resources to take on a high needs dog right now. Are there warning signs to look for? With our work/school schedules, do I need to think about hiring a dog walker for the days that we aren’t home during the day? What else should I be thinking about?

2

Personally I don’t think it is fair for you to have a dog if they will be alone ten hours three days per week. Dogs thrive on human interaction. Even if you got two dogs, I am not so sure that would do it either.

3

Two things come up:

  • 10 hours a day is a LOT of time for a dog to be without human contact. At the very least, you’ll need someone to come home and take it out for a potty break. You’ll need more than one visit a day if you’re getting a puppy, and the puppy might have a really, really hard time being alone so much.

  • Are you 100% sure your 9-year-old will walk the dog twice a day, every day, for the next 10-15 years? If not, spend the money, put in a fence. Really. A fence makes having a dog about a gazillion times easier. I never understand people who have dogs and yard and don’t fence them in. It’s just so handy to be able to open the door and send the dogs outside!

4

No puppies. Get a young adult or adolescent house-trained dog from a rescue or local shelter. Medium breeds and up please. Little dogs are often too fragile to withstand rough play from young children. You will need to toddler-proof the home again, as young dogs are just like 2 year old humans without thumbs. 8 hrs is about the limit for most dogs before they start getting anxious and mischievous. I suggest a walker for those three days.

5

I have a dog and 2 cats and 4 kids. The only dog we’ve ever had that had a problem with the cats was a pitbull, it just had a high prey drive. But the mutt we now have gets along great with the kitties.

The Humane Society is a great place to get a dog. My main advice is to be picky. An obnoxious dog can make your life miserable, and a sweet dog is a beautiful thing. Then go watch a few dozen episode of “The Dog Whisperer” to get some idea of how to handle and train the dog.

And it would totally be worth it to fence the backyard. Letting the dog out to potty, run around, or just lie in the sun makes their life and yours much easier.

6

OK, I’m going to tell you one of the main reasons why the Bodonis do not have a resident dog. It’s because we have four cats, and dogs regard cat turds as tasty treats.

7

This is exactly the reason we don’t have a cat :slight_smile:

8

OMG! My parents’ dog cleans out the litter box all the time and it is just SO GROSS! I hadn’t thought about that.

OK. Rethinking the fence. We have been thinking of taking advantage of the super low interest rates to borrow some money for home improvements, so I will add that to the list. I guess I will also need to figure out where our property lines are…

9

Have you though about not getting a dog? Everthing is wrong. The yard isn’t fenced, people aren’t home, you have cats, you have no experience with dogs. An older dog might work out, but if it has a problem with cats it may be too late to effectively deal with it.

But if you are going to do this, look for a dog that needs a home. There’s no need to encourage the continued breeding of dogs for profit when so many have no home already. Pure breeds tend to have more health problems than mixed breeds, and some contend they are more high strung. You want a smart dog. If you are looking at one in particular, and the dog can’t or won’t sit on command or give you a paw, it’s likely to end up being a problem. Don’t take your kids with you to decide on a dog. They can fall in love with any dog they see, and drive you crazy if you don’t bring it home. Don’t go yourself if you can’t seperate emotion from practical considerations. Vets are expensive, and pet insurance looks like a rip-off, but you can get the necessary shots at places like PetCo for reasonable prices. Male dogs tend to be more obedient, trainable, and loyal. But male or female you have to get it fixed. There are too many puppies already. Dogs have to be family members, you can’t just put them away when company comes. The bigger the dog, the more it will eat, and crap. Be prepared to deal with that. Don’t count on the kids to take care of the dog. A dog is like a 2 1/2 year old child for a lot of it’s life, you can’t leave them alone for very long.

Also, be prepared to lower your opinion of humans in general once you have a dog for a best friend.

10

This informative video will be of no help whatsoever.

11

A fence was the first thing I bought when I bought my new home for me and my then-3-year-old dog. It cost $1200 to go around .25 acres (half of my half-acre lot).

Best purchase I’ve ever made in my life. Not sure how anyone can have a dog without a fenced-in yard (no need to pile on, all of you who have dogs without fences). Even though I walk her every day anyway, I never have to get dressed to take her outside or listen to her bark indoors or get up early to take her out.

If you do get a dog (and I don’t suggest it, because of your schedule) do all of you a favor and get a fence.

12

I despise The Dog Whisperer and strongly disagree with some of his ideas. I am, however, a huge fan of Victoria Stillwell. Check her out for a different dog training philosophy.

I can’t recommend a fenced yard strongly enough either. Really, that and a good crate is a lifesaver.

I work about 1/2 mile from my house, so when I had dogs, I went home every single day to have lunch with them and let them out. If nobody in your family can do that, then I echo the suggestion of a dogwalker. Also, I tend to take dogs out more like four times a day, especially if they’re younger than two. “A couple” times a day does not cut it, especially if you have a high-energy dog.

Remember: tired dogs are good dogs. If you get a bouncy, springy one, make sure it gets a really good run (half hour to an hour) every single day. Wear it out. The dog will be healthier for it, and you will be too.

13

I kept the cat litter in the laundry room with a baby gate across the door. That way, Kitty can get to his litter by jumping over the gate and the dogs couldn’t get to the tasty kitty granola treats in the litter box.

I also feed the cat up on his own counter space, too high for the dogs to get to his food. Cat food is much higher in protein than dog food, so if dogs eat too much cat food, they can develop kidney and liver problems. If you mix a dog in with cats, it’s okay if the cat eats the dog food (although not ideal because the protein isn’t high enough for a cat), but it is not okay for the dog to eat cat food (way too rich for dogs). You’ll have to arrange feeding so the dog can’t get to the cat’s bowl. At my house, they all shared the water bowls, so that wasn’t an issue.

FTR: I was a dog-and-cat household until April, when my old dog finally croaked. Now I’m down to just one cat, but I’m already dog-shopping (at the pound/shelter/rescue groups).

14

Ten hours is a long stretch for a dog to go without peeing or pooping. It probably won’t and you will be inflicting torture on the dog who will try to hold it as long as possible. I also fear your kid won’t be walking the dog as diligently as you foresee. Plus the yard is not dog friendly. You really don’t seem to be in a position to have a dog and maybe you are influenced by the children’s ill considered desires.

My bottom line advice in things is: When in doubt, don’t.

15

The first thing to do is to research breeds, and what their requirements are. Some will do fine in your situation, some will be awful. Breeds are very different, and when you go to a shelter for a dog (which you should) it will pay off in not making a mistake.

Your 9-year-old can research this. When we got our first dog our kid who wanted one was 9. You will need to make the final choice, but it will help when the kid won’t want that cute but inappropriate one.

Definitely fence your yard. Besides allowing the dog to be outside when you are gone, if and when the dog gets out you won’t have to worry about it roaming the neighborhood. The alternative is chaining the dog outside, but that is awful.

Some dogs do better alone than others. We got our first dog, a border collie/cocker mix, from people who worked a lot and left him in the yard. He hated it, and seldom went out by himself except to relieve. Since my wife works from home we were a good home for him. Our Golden, however, is fine with being along, but she is a guide dog and can handle pretty much anything.

16

While it’s good for kids to practice being responsible for another being (someday, they’ll have to at minimum be responsible for themselves), make sure that YOU want a dog and the responsibility of that dog for when the kid is sick, busy with school/sports/studying/etc. in a few years, at camp, loses interest, etc. If you are having qualms, don’t do it.

I agree with the disagreement about the “Dog Whisperer”. His methods are suboptimal and, at times, downright dangerous to the dog and himself (he has been bitten far more times than the typical veterinarian gets bitten in their entire career, and given how many dogs are terrified at the vet, that should tell you something), and for a new dog owner to attempt to use them is asking for someone to get hurt and the dog end up back at the shelter or worse. If police dogs can be trained with only positive reinforcement and no punishment (and they can), and if behaviorists can rehabilitate aggressive and out of control dogs with alpha-rolling, waving open scissors around a dog’s face as it snaps at their hand (as Cesar Millan does in one video that I can’t find right now) and similar crap (and they can), then there’s no need for you to get started down the punishment-dominance-scare the dog into doing what you want road. If you are interested, the veterinary behaviorists have come out with a position statement - WARNING: PDF - opposing the use of punishment for training, spurred in part by the popularity of The Dog Whisperer. I’ll leave the rest for another thread (and there have been many).

Regardless of which school or theory of dog training you subscribe to, watching a TV show is NOT enough for the new dog owner. Even if you get an older dog, you should still attend obedience sessions with a competent trainer to make sure that you and your dog are on the same wavelength. You can ask your vet and/or the shelter/rescue for references. Before signing up for a class, go observe a class or two with the trainer you are thinking of. Do the dogs look happy to be there? How do they react to their owners and the trainer? They should be relaxed or exuberant, not scared or aggressive. Is the trainer friendly and good at explaining things to the people? They are really teaching YOU to train the dog.

Regarding what dog to get, it is possible to find out before you adopt whether the dog is good with cats. Ideally, you would go with a rescue group that places their dogs in foster homes to see how they react to being in a busy household with children, other animals, and busy schedules. A good rescue - or a well-run shelter - will interview you to determine your needs and then make recommendations of individual animals based on what they feel would be the best fit. Of course, there are rescue people who are nutters and rescues with unreasonable expectations, but there are good ones out there. Depending on the breed/size/individual dog, even adolescent or 1 year old might be on the young side. Some dogs/breeds tend to act like goofy puppies for a couple years before settling down (and then there are those who never settle down).

At least right now, the 5 y.o. and the dog should NOT be left together unsupervised. At some point later, when you know the dog better and the kid knows more about how to act around dogs, you can trust them together, but during the adjustment period, 5 is too young to trust that neither will hurt the other, even accidentally. E.g., kid is petting dog, dog gets sick of it (or is stressed for other reasons, including the new household), dog gives warning signs, kid doesn’t recognize warning signs and continues petting/pestering dog, dog nips kid. JMHO.

17

God I’m sick to death of people who don’t know any better prattling this stuff off as if it were gospel. Here it is, point by point -

  1. Any dog that is for sale or to give away “needs a home”.

  2. The only “breeding of dogs for profit” that is being done is by puppy mills. As long as you don’t buy a puppy from a pet store or direct online, you are not supporting “breeding of dogs for profit”.

  3. So many dogs are killed in shelters because people are stupid, not because there is some glut in the market. Do you not notice that an overwhelming number of the dogs in shelters are not puppies, meaning that some twit got a puppy and then dumped it when it started to be trouble/bit someone/couldn’t be housebroken. Many people do this over and over until they finally end up with a “good” dog (i.e. they get lucky).

Another reason so many dogs are killed in shelters is because people are stupid and let their unaltered dogs run at large, or they have one litter to show their kids “the miracle of birth”, so we end up with litters of mixes that few people will commit to and no one wants to be responsible for. Purebred dogs bred by responsible breeders can be returned to them if there is a problem, and the ones bred irresponsibly have rescue organizations. This is why the dogs in shelters are overwhelmingly mutts or poorly bred representatives of the very popular breeds (the ones whose rescues are stuffed full).

  1. Purebred dogs do not have more health problems than mixes, particularly if you factor in the “designer breed” mixes that are going for such high prices. All dogs are the same species - you cannot get hybrid vigor or whatever reason you think a mixed breed must be more heathy, and most of the genetic problems that dogs can get are there in all breeds. So a mix has the same chance of getting, say, hip dysplasia as any given purebred, and actually a greater chance since it is extremely rare that anyone cared enough about a mix that they paid the money to do any health checks on the parents.

  2. High strung?? I thought that dumb wives tale died decades ago.

Say what??? You recommend the OP go to a shelter to look at dogs that have been dumped for a reason, and then you expect that she will find a dog that has had enough training that it coule obey in that highly distracting environment? Wow.

Also, the average family doesn’t want a smart dog, since those dogs bore quickly and so make up entertainment that may or may not meet with approval.

To the OP - the best thing to do is research what breed(s) will best fit your family and lifestyle, then talk to the national club for that breed to get a list of responsible breeders. A responsible breeder will offer a guarantee and will be there to answer any questions/concerns you might have, and will take the dog back should it not work out. They also may have trained adults available at times. If you need help at any point with any of this, feel free to PM me!

Oh, and do build that fence! :slight_smile:

18

I agree to get a dog that’s already trained - we’ve always had puppies and while v cute, they now (as adults) sit at the table at dinner time, and are v v annoying!!

Ah I recommend a King Charles Cavalier, though. Cute, they love cuddles, and they are good sportsmen too.

19

Yeah, how does a newborn puppy not need a home, no matter what circumstances it was born under?

I get the “don’t reward unethical breeders by giving them money for puppies and thus encouraging them to continue” angle; that, unfortunately, doesn’t help the already-existing puppy who needs a home.

I s’pose one can take the view that one is making the decision for the benefit of all dogs to prioritise not rewarding the breeder over the puppy’s need for a home. Poor puppy doesn’t get a say in that though.

20

I think that if you don’t have the time or the incentive for housetraining, you don’t have the time or incentive to own a dog.

A dog will require more invested time than all your cats put together; and it seems that there is the expectation that your 9-year-old can, and will, assume most of the responsibility.

There is the likelihood that he will lose interest after a while; notwithstanding that in a few years he will be a teenager with a social life. It is at this point that I imagine a very lonely dog languishing inside, dreaming for the backyard fence that never came.

I vote get yourself a dog if it is another cat.