Training two dogs together can be tough.
We know. Even when we train dogs that aren’t ours, it can be challenging to train more than one at a time.
We recognize that many owners have two dogs. And that two pups seem to like to teach each other bad habits. Much like kids. The older one guides the younger one to make bad decisions. And before you know it, you have two little brats on your hands (we’re still talking about the dogs – not the kids!). This is one of many reasons it is recommended to get puppies separately rather than as litter mates.
But even if you wait a year between pups, they will still teach each other bad behavior if they are not trained and held to their new “higher standard”.
That’s why e-collar training is so important and effective.
It allows greater communication between you and your dog. And it allows you to communicate with both dogs at the same time or separately. It also helps encourage the behavior you want. Again, like children, one doing making a good choice will help the other dog make similar choices.
The way we work with two dogs is exactly the same as we work with one. We teach the basics first – using the leash and e-collar pressure to help guide to get the behavior we want. That could be staying within our bubble for heel, or learning the concept of “place”. But we make sure they know the basic idea of the command individually.
Then the real work begins. We move to increased difficulty: working two dogs together. This way they become used to their new rules together.
These two below were working together after only a day with us. As you can see, they are still learning at this point of their Board & Train program, but they are well behaved and listening to the behaviors requested of them. There is one controller communicating with each one.
You can achieve this with your dogs too! If you don’t know where to start, shoot us a message on Facebook! We’d love to help in any way we can!
