I went to a very busy house yesterday, with three generations of family and three female. Two were Jack Russell/Staffie crosses called Lucy and Brandy, both quite small, and a beautiful Cairn called Maddie.
Citronella collar
Cairn Maddie is the barker and they will be working on that, using a behavioural approach rather than the citronella collar they have understandably resorted to.
I feel it is unacceptable to squirt citronella up a dog’s nose – it’s most sensitive and primary sense.
This would be like someone shining a powerful light into our eyes until we were blinded.
Lucy, Brandy and baby
Lucy is the most needy, having been the only dog for a while and babied. Brandy joined the household a month ago and previously belonged to another family member.
There is now a six week old baby in the house, and all the dogs are very chilled about this. They are used to grandchildren and babies.
The three dogs, all bitches, aren’t chilled with one another.
The three dogs were at each other most of the time. As soon as anybody came in or went out, which happened frequently, the excitement caused some sort of turmoil. This ended in Brandy humping Cairn Maddie and then Lucy joining in to hump her also.
Maddie then would get cross and turn on them.
It has never actually deteriorated into full-blown fighting – yet.
Unable to walk all three dogs together
Because the dogs redirected any sort of tension or frustration to one another, they are unable to walk the three dogs together. Brandy, who has only been with them for a month, will attack one of the others.
The atmosphere is going to be kept as calm as possible. The dogs won’t be stimulated unnecessarily with exciting sort of rough and tumble or tugging play (they can manage to get excited without any outside help!).
Each dog will be walked separately for a while until they learn to walk calmly on loose leads. Then the two calmest will be paired up and the pairing will be mixed until all three can be walked together.
