Looking for advice/guidance on whether to get a second dog

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Here’s the situation: I have an almost two-year-old female lab. She is very high energy and is obsessed with playing fetch. In fact, I just opened my home office door and three of her balls are sitting just outside in the hall, in case I want to go throw them for her.

Currently, my partner or I take Riley out at least five times a day and throw the ball for her (we use a Chuck-it, a wonderful invention!) for about ten minutes each time. We stop only when she doesn’t easily give up the ball and is usually panting like a steam locomotive.

The problem is, we started out throwing the ball for her three times a day, then four, and now are up to five. She’s gotten fitter and lost 5 pounds and would happily play fetch every hour on the hour if we would only cooperate. But we both work, me at home and him outside of the house.

I have been thinking for some time now that it might help if she had another dog to play with. I have plenty of space – I live on five acres – and have a fenced backyard. My concern is, she seems to be timid and a little fearful when meeting other dogs, like at the beach or at our group obedience class. I’m guessing it was because she was the runt of her litter and got routinely “beaten up” by her much bigger brothers.

Should I get a canine companion for her? If so, how do I go about finding the right one? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

2

Last year I got my young dog, Shoga, a puppy. She’s a very high energy heeler mix (I think her “mix” is bloodhound or whippet given how fast she is and how high she can and does jump) who was getting very sad because my old dog is 12 and grumpy and does not play with anyone for any reason these days.

Since old dog Bear won’t be around for too much longer, dogs being the way they are, I figured it was time to see about expanding the family. I adopted Shoga at ten months old in '17 because my Border collie cross Widget was not long for the world due to a huge liver tumor and he did indeed die about two months after she joined us. I decided that rather than go for another rescue dog (because dealing with the unending bullshit of the rescue groups was just pissing me off) I would go ahead and indulge myself by finding a good breeder and picking out a pup. I decided on another heeler, and brought Kosh home in August of last year.

Shoga was absolutely entranced with him and she has taken on all the more difficult aspects of puppy rearing. I handled feeding, house breaking, obedience and scritches and she handled running, wrestling, bitey face and toy stealing. We all worked on fetch, food aggression and bite inhibition. Bear gave intermittent lessons on how much an old dog will tolerate and backed it up with loud noises and pinning Kosh down for a good hard slobbering. Between the three of us we raised a pretty good canine citizen.

I would 100% not been able to keep up with Kosh without Shoga being his nanny dog. I got tendinitis in one shoulder after the other and if I’d had to keep that maniac exercised it might have killed me. Instead I just turn the two of them loose on the regular and they race each other around the yard, wrestle more or less constantly and play fight with horrific noises but never once a genuine quarrel. They are besties and they cuddle and groom each other whenever they run out of energy.

So upshot is, yes, you SHOULD get Riley a puppy of her very own. She won’t be timid or fearful of a puppy and her maternal instincts will probably kick in right off the bat. Shoga is also a timid doggo but is never cowed by Kosh even though he now outweighs her and could hurt her if he tried–since they’re bonded he doesn’t try too often and she holds her own. She can also run rings around him if he gets too stroppy. Dogs are very social animals and do best with other dogs around to give them the kind of play and exercise humans don’t do well at. Like bitey face, hyoomons tend to frown at that and dogs love bitey face game more than nearly anything.

Also, I think we’ll be needing a pic of Riley–pet tax, don’tcha know!

3

Thank you, @SmartAleq, for your very helpful reply. I hadn’t thought about getting a puppy – we got Riley as a pup and swore we were far too old to every do it again. But our situation has certainly changed with me now permanently working from home and my partner working less than 30 hours a week and no longer on a graveyard shift. This is good food for thought.

As for pictures of Riley, if someone would instruct me on how to do that, I’d happily oblige.

4

I’ve never tried them, but they do make automated ball launchers. You can train your dog to drop the ball into it and it will launch it automatically.

As for getting another dog, that’s a good idea. Dogs are pack animals and will generally prefer to have another dog. Since Riley is a female, I would suggest to get a male dog as a companion. When I’ve had 2 female dogs, they tended to just tolerate each other rather than being best buds. Even if she is shy around other dogs, she will likely warm up just fine to another dog in time. When you find a dog you like, see if you can have the dogs meet to see how they get along. It might not be a love fest at first. It’s more to see if there’s any aggression which could complicate things. But as long as they don’t seem to mind each other, it will likely work out.

5

Easiest way to do it is to host the pic on another site, like imgur.com then just drop the direct link here on its own line.

For example, here is Shoga playing with baby Kosh:

[Album] imgur.com

And here is Kosh all grown up:

[Album] imgur.com
6

The blurred tip of the tail is really cute.

OP, Sporting Breeds were bred to, well, do their sport. A lot. As a former Lab owner, I’m just delighted that yours sounds like it listens to you at under 2 years old. Nice change of pace. I also am familiar with the ‘increased exercise means it just takes longer to tire them out’ phenomenon. Really fun with a Weimaraner…

Does your Lab swim? If so, is there a body of water nearby you can take her to? Swimming, IME, tires them out quick, especially if there’s a current to negotiate. Plus, the water cools them enough so that fatigue, and not overheating, is what will slow them down.

+1 on the getting a male for your female. It may be different with your Lab; my dominant female Weim frequently tried to beat on my very submissive female Lab. But she got along fantastically with male dogs, especially other Weims.

Mental exercise can tire them out too. Something like a ‘Buster Cube’, or other toy, can occupy their brain for awhile.

Giving her a job(s) is great also. Helping the prospective new puppy could be that job. Dogs love routine, and love knowing they’re working at their task and doing it to the leader’s approval. At least Sporting breeds do, and/or really high drive and bright animals like Weims or GSDs, Malinois, or the like.

7

Perhaps it goes without saying, but if you get a male dog make sure to get him (or them both) fixed unless you want puppies.

8

Trying to find a pic of her with her new puppers that DIDN’T have tail blur is basically impossible. She was so impressed with him and fell in love in about 14 picoseconds.

I also support alternating boy/girl/boy with dogs–they generally do get along better when they’re of opposite sexes. Exceptions do occur, of course, and one reason why Shoga got sad was that I’d had my son’s dog, also a girl, living with me for several months and Shoga was just devastated when her playmate had to go back home. They’re both very submissive and playful doggos though, I think that helps a pair of girl dogs to get along. Boy dogs figure out their status issues fairly quickly, in my experience, and will work together well but they don’t generally bond as hard with another male unless they were raised together. Some males, though, just never stop testing each other and it can get very annoying and sometimes terrifying if they get seriously combative with each other.

9

Shoga reminds me of our heeler/beagle mix Ginger.

10

Fun fact–“shoga” is Japanese for “ginger!” :wink:

11

Two dogs aren’t really that much harder than one. The only difference for me is that it’s harder to get people to watch your two dogs when you’re away (one dog you can often send over to someone else’s house). But the reason I got two dogs in the first place was so I could board them together and not feel so bad about abandoning them.

Note that two dogs might not help Riley’s fetching addiction. Instead you might now have twice as many dogs bugging the shit out of you all day. As a work-from-home dog-owning veteran of 20 years, I gotta tell you you’ve just got to set boundaries and schedules for the dogs. My dogs are pretty chill during the day. They know their schedules and are total assholes at breakfast, lunch and quitting times but they know I’m not getting up to play with them or do walks from 9-5. They’re fine, they learn. If you give in…well, they’ve trained you and that can get annoying (as you see).

But having two dogs is lovely. It’s lovely to see them interact. I’m sure Riley will not be afraid of a brother dog, not in the same way she is at the dog park. I agree that a boy will be submissive to her. I’ve seen timid labs but never angry. She will be happy.

12

Cool!

13

If you have the time and resources to take care of them, sure.

Just make sure that you don’t just drop the new dog in without preparing them for it.

14

At one time we had a VERY energetic golden. WAY different than the 2 we had had before or the one after. We thought we would get a 2d golden to hopefully calm her/wear her out. So we got a 2d golden.

Yes, 2 dogs are not much more effort on a day-to-day basis. But they do COST twice as much in food, vets, etc. Walking them CAN be a little more complicated - holding 2 leashes while fumbling w/ poop bags. And you have to be aware that they do not dictate the atmosphere in the house. For example, if you have 2 70# labs that decide they enjoy rough-housing in your house… And they are twice as expensive to kennel, may limit hotel choices, etc. Just saying, there is a subtle difference in going from people with A DOG, to people with MULTIPLE BIG DOGS. Multiple dogs just affect your life a little more in various ways.

Long story short, our 2 goldens got along fine, but the older one still had what we considered ADD-type issues - pacing in the house, running back and forth along the fence at the dog park chasing cars, chasing after shadows cast on the walls. We ended up giving her to a family w/ young kids and a large property, who could really wear her out, and the 2d dog we got turned out to be a great dog.

I’m not sure I see what the OP’s problem is. All of our goldens have been addicted to balls. Our last one would chase the ball until he got what we called “the staggers.” And he injured a back leg running like a maniac. I realized I was supposed to be the one with the brains, so I limited the number of throws.

Another possible issue, one of our goldens was very possessive of his ball. If he was fetching and another nice dog came up, my dog would bark and growl, as tho the other dog wanted to take his ball. No idea how common that is, but just tossing it out there as a possibility.

So what if the dog wants to fetch more than you want to throw? Just because the dog wants to do something doesn’t mean you have to do it. Is she digging or causing damage? You say she lost weight - are you overfeeding?

I say just decide how much you are willing to exercise the dog, and leave it at that.

15

Oh, absolutely! Riley was spayed at six months. I’d be fine with a male but he would not be intact for long.

16

Dinsdale - How’s the new puppy doing? Mini goldendoodle, right?

StG

17

Yeah - really good. Thx for asking.

Quite different from the goldens I’m used to. Every time I run into a golden, if I interact w/ them I think, “Yeah - THAT’S what I think a dog is like!”

Really digging the smaller size (33.5# at 9 mos) and no shed. 30-40# is PLENTY of dog - at least for me at my age. We took him up to a lace in the country a few times over the summer, and he REALLY took to it. Swimming, walking through the woods off leash, getting filthy.

He doesn’t react as immediately as a golden. He seems to say, “I’m thinking about it”, or “In a minute.” HE is getting much better at “come”, but nowhere near automatic of dependable offleash outside of the house/yard. But we are lazier at training him than we should be. He responded fine up in the woods. In our yard, he is like, “Why do I NEED to come NOW?”

But he is a really happy little guy, loves hugs. And he’s stupidly cute. And is SLOWLY getting his brains! Thanks again for asking. What/how is your current menagerie?

18

Remember the MMP rule about posting pet photo? Ya gotta do it. Or else.

19

She lost weight because we had been over-treating and under exercising her. We started working with a very good trainer a few months ago, who reminded me that a tired dog is a good dog. So we started getting seriously about teaching her to drop her ball so we could play fetch. She got that lesson in about two seconds flat with the trainer’s help. After that, it was all fetch, all the time.

I have wondered about Riley being possessive of her balls with another dog. Maybe a sturdy non-sporting breed – one that didn’t care about fetching or balls – would be a good choice. A dog who would still play with her but not be in competition for the ball.

As for two dogs limiting our travel choices, I have two horses at home as well and am not very interested in traveling, especially with COVID. When I do go somewhere, I take Riley with me or I don’t go.

20

I hear you about the dog bugging the shit out of me all day. That’s what Riley is doing now. I’m hoping if she had a playmate, she’s bug the shit of them instead of me.

It was easier in many ways when I was still working in my office. She’d get time out the morning and as soon as I got home. It was clearly okay, because she wasn’t destroying anything in the house or chewing up the furniture while she was home alone. But now that I’m home all the time, she thinks I should be available to entertain her whenever. Yeah, I know, she’s spoiled. It’s hard not to spoil a really smart dog. They figure out how to train you really quickly. :face_with_raised_eyebrow: