erinder
Grey Lover
Collarbones - for you guessed it, collars! (formerly Fussy Pup)
Posts: 421
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Post by erinder on Jun 24, 2007 22:21:51 GMT -5
Just curious about other peoples' experiences with adding new greys. I'm going to ask Bill for advice but thought I'd see what you guys have experienced. Did you notice any food or sleeping agression? do you feed them apart from each other? in their crates? Or did it matter? Would you recommend crating the new one during the day at first while the other dog is out and about? Also, since I THINK I'm going to crate the new girl at first do you think it would be okay to use digby's crate for her? he doesn't use it and it's been folded up in the basement forever. do you think he'd be upset to see another dog in there or not know the difference? any other advice for having 2 greys ? thanks guys!!
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Post by jiffer on Jun 25, 2007 8:44:18 GMT -5
Food or sleep aggression is a dog by dog basis.. not all dogs have it. Out of ours, only Echo has sleep aggression.. and I wouldn't even label it that since she just growls when she thinks she may be stepped on. Using a light "ah ah" or "knock it off" often works if they do get a bit snarly. If it does happen, it's more common at first and it tends to settle with time. I feed all of ours together. Atlas and Orion share a feeder (two bowls, one feeder), Echo has a feeder to herself and Uber we feed in his crate. Uber gets to eat in the crate because I want him to continue to like living in his crate... it's worked very well so far. Eventually, I'll ween him off the crate.. I'm just not ready for that yet. The other three have eaten side by side since the day each came home. They learn rather quickly who gets to eat where and not to touch the neighbours dish. Right now and for every dog we add to our pack, we crate the newbie and the others get free reign. The dogs don't rationalize like we do... they don't see that one is crated and the others are free. Uber is still crated during the day when we're out, but the others are free to roam about the house. This works well for us since Uber has a lot of energy and I fear that the others wouldn't tolerate his exuberance if we weren't there to intercede or to exercise him. He's still very much a puppy... even at 5 years old. By all means, use Digby's crate We've been using the same crate for all of our guys. Usually once they're off the crate, they don't tend to miss it so I doubt Digby will harbour any feelings towards it. I have noticed that ours who wouldn't crate.. ahem, Miss Echo, ahem... will now willingly go in and lay down when no one else is in there. Go figure. LOL As for having two greys, you get double the fun and they'll have company to keep themselves entertained in the day. Just be careful... you might find your eye wandering to the adoptables list again
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erinder
Grey Lover
Collarbones - for you guessed it, collars! (formerly Fussy Pup)
Posts: 421
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Post by erinder on Jun 25, 2007 14:02:17 GMT -5
good advice, thank you im thinking i may buy a second crate anyway just because we'd like to bring the dogs with us, to hotels, when we travel. i don't quite trust digby not to pee on something. i suppose it would make more sense to borrow one at times though..
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emily
Hound Nut
Posts: 1,529
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Post by emily on Jun 25, 2007 14:58:50 GMT -5
For travel, would a belly band and an x-pen they both can share (when they're used to each other) not do? Just a thought.
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