I’ve got two dogs. I can’t walk them with the wife due to her absence, so now I’m confronted with two options:
Walk them together.
Walk each separately.
I know which I would enjoy more. One of them has a “pulling” habit, and I’d enjoy walking them separately more.
However, I know two things:
Dogs are pack animals.
Dogs like attention from their people.
So here’s the doggie behavioral question:
Would my dogs enjoy the individual attention of their dogfather walking them individually more, or would they prefer to enjoy the pack experience of all three of us roving the neighborhood’s sidewalks?
From the dog’s point of view, Dog + You = Pack. So to Dog, it doesn’t matter how many other pack members tag along; you and he, together, in his opinion make a “pack” all by yourselves. He isn’t going to feel he’s getting any special “attention” from you en route just because it’s You And Him Alone, unless you’re planning to stop halfway and do a one-on-one grooming or obedience training thing in the middle of the sidewalk.
Walk 'em together. Life’s too short to walk dogs separately.
Of course you’re not. Your member name clearly identifies you as a goose.
And geese are cantankerous, so if I had any… I wouldn’t dare try to put a leash on one. Probably lose a finger.
Walk them together. It takes 1/2 as long (or you can go twice as far in the same time if that’s what you prefer).
When my older dog was having some physcial problems, I tried to walk them separately so the younger one could still walk the same distance that the older one couldn’t handle. It was a mess. I had to get up much earlier in the morning than I liked, and the dogs didn’t understand it. The one who wasn’t going out at that second would get crazy jealous. It didn’t matter that the darn dog had just been walked earlier and the other one was only getting what they’d just received. All he/she noticed was that the other one was going out and he/she wasn’t!
Seriously. My mum has two terriers and a three-legged border collie. One of the terriers (the Cairn) is totally hyper. She has a strap about 6 feet long with a dog-clip on each end which she uses to clip him to the big dog.
Then the little dog gets to run around with his friend, who stops him getting into trouble, and drags him back when mum calls. For moments when they need to be ‘on the lead’ there’s a metal ring in the middle of the strap which you can hook a lead into - hey presto, two dogs on one lead.
Dogs are like kids - if you have more than one, they exercise each other, and you can usually co-opt one as an enforcer.
Do not use the Halti collar.
True, the dog won’t pull.
But by using that, you’re giving up and letting the dog decide how you should walk. Obedience and contact is the way to go, not gadgets.
Dogs want to please, it’s in their nature. If the dog doesn’t obey you, then you haven’t practised / trained enough with it.
And I agree with slaphead - dogs exercise each other. Walking on a leash is not exercise.
I would walk them together. To make it easier, get or make a splitter. Essentially a short (12"-18")leash between the dogs with a place to hook your leash to in the middle.
It’s a lot easier than trying to control two dogs on two leashes.