Customer Reviews

Feeling Outnumbered? How to Manage and Enjoy Your Multi-Dog Household.

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have to say that I was disappointed with this booklet. I think I should have read the description better as I was expecting a book and got a 38 page booklet.
I didn't find the information all that helpful in dealing with my three-dog household. I felt most of it was in umbrella terms and there were very few specifics. Also many topics on things to do with your dogs, but for more details or the how-to's you were referred to a book-list in the back of the book.
Most of the information was common sense.
Probably good for beginning owners of multiple dogs but if you have owned multiples for awhile, I don't think this information will be new.

Nice little booklet. I don't have many problems with my pair of dogs, but I like to think I can spot new issues and head them off pretty quickly - she gave me more signals to watch and more tools for dealing with the issues.

She has interesting ideas about group naming and group commands. Good advice for when another dog is being added to an already extant group of dogs - she also differentiates between an adult and a puppy - which are accepted differently by dog society.

Great pointers on when play is play, play is 'powerplay'and when to stop the powerplay from becoming a fight. My dogs can play rough and sometimes I am aware that it is becoming a grudge match - it was nice to have someone say that its alright to break it up and you DON'T have to let them 'sort it out'(sometimes I just don't want to listen to 15 minutes of growling and banging around during the 'play herding' phase). I find after a couple times that I have stopped the 'powerplay' that they seem to be playing more politely/quietly because they know that I am watching and ready to tell them 'go bed'.

This is a good place to start for those with multiple-dog households. It serves as a great consolidation of multi-dog topics from other books, many of which I have also read. The authors have done a great job of referencing the topics, so if you want to learn more, it is easy to pick out the longer book that most applies to that topic. I found it very helpful in teaching me how to train my dogs together (seperately), as well as defining what is play and when it's time to cool off. It's a good reference to have on hand when you just need a quick review of pack dynamics, and don't have the time to sift through a longer book for the information that you're looking for.

When my husband and I added a third dog to our household, chaos reigned. Worse yet, fights broke out between our new dog and the two older dogs. We needed order and clear rules about how the dogs were to interact with each other and with us. We read a lot of books on dog-dog aggression and watched several videos, but this book gave us practical exercises that really made a difference. The book has a theoretical basis that is explained well and makes sense, and it outlines specific interventions for a better behaved household. I would recommend it to anyone with a multi-dog household, and I would very highly recommend it if you are experiencing dog-dog aggression.

The point of this book is to instruct us humans how to train our doggy friends--individually, then as a group--to be "patient and polite," instead of "pushy and aggressive," in short, to be well-mannered.
The progressions are common-sense (something as rare as manners) and the approach is to make the training a fun game: if people like games, dogs LOVE them. My favorite line is "simple doesn't mean easy." How wonderful to have a truism put to words! Manners are NOT easy to teach...hence the packs of pushy, selfish children in our schools and hordes of aggressive, selfish drivers on our freeways.
The book's an easy, fun read--the goal, when attained by lots of work, is a more happy and stress-free home, shared with tolerant and well-mannered companions.

When my husband and I added a third dog to our household, chaos reigned. Worse yet, fights broke out between our new dog and the two older dogs. We needed order and clear rules about how the dogs were to interact with each other and with us. We read a lot of books on dog-dog aggression and watched several videos, but this book gave us practical exercises that really made a difference. The book has a theoretical basis that is explained well and makes sense, and it outlines specific interventions for a better behaved household. I would recommend it to anyone with a multi-dog household, and I would very highly recommend it if you are experiencing dog-dog aggression.

I too should have read the description more thoroughly. Some good advice but expensive for 38 pages. I thought I was getting a book, not a bookLET. Definitely don't feel I got a bang for my bucks.

This book is a reference to refer back to often, as we multiple dog owners struggle with issues that arise and lead us to search for answers to better understand and lead our "pack" in the most peaceful manner. It's peace that we want, and while this guide teaches us how to stay focused on primary leadership behavior, we can't help but want to read and discuss more about the individual nuances that we observe with our canine companions. I highly recommend this guide as a basic tool for effective leadership of multiple dogs. There is, however, more to be said and shared on this multiple dog arrangement that incorporates and integrates our canine-canine and human-canine structure and dynamics. I hope that Karen London and Patricia McConnell won't stop here.

This is a good, basic introduction to living with several dogs. The bad thing about it is that this is common sense to anyone willing to live with two or more dogs. Try to check it out from the library, or borrow it from a trainer in your area if you can. Use your money on a new chew toy instead!

Be sure to notice the length of this pamplet--I mean, "book." The price per page is not small.

If you want to run your home like a British kindergarten and raise your dogs to be proper gentle folk, you might like this little advisory. But if I were going to run my "pack" like this, I wouldn't bother having dogs.

After following the advice in this book for a week, my wife and I were ready to get rid of our new, second dog. A neighbor with multiple dogs, thank God, said, "You're reading too much. Let them be dogs." We listened. The dogs are happier and so are we.

What's worth reading in here, you can find in McConnell's much cheaper "How to Be the Leader of Your Pack."