Where Should Your Dog Sleep?

A few days ago I posted a question, "Where does your dog sleep at night?" on my business Facebook page, just for fun. I wanted to get more people interacting, see who saw posts and was genuinely curious. I got quite the response! I even got responses from people that were not fans on my FB page at all (that probably saw the post on their friend's feed).

This of course, got me to thinking, is one place better over another for a dog to sleep? All dogs, and people of course, have different personalities. Factor in age and life-style of the dog and person, and we can have quite a few appropriate places for a dog to sleep.

Ideally, a puppy should sleep in a crate next to the owner's bed. A puppy left loose can harm furniture and items, harm himself and defecate/urinate in the middle of the night. A puppy crated away from humans usually is going to distress bark and whine all night long. Canines are social creatures and locking one away in the garage isn't the nicest thing to do to a new puppy. If the garage is the plan for the future, it should be a gradual move as the puppy matures and becomes more confident. A puppy should not sleep in the owner's bed because he can eliminate in the bed (eww!), fall off the bed and injure himself, get rolled upon by the human, cause potential issues between spouses sharing said bed, potentially resource guard the bed and create a huge issue in the future and lastly, can share some pretty nasty zoonotic diseases/parasites. Also, crate training is very helpful in the long-run of a dog's life and crating at night is an easy way to start and maintain a puppy liking his crate.

An adult dog that someone has had for a while is a different story! An adult dog that does not destroy things and is potty trained, can be allowed freedom of the house at night (and probably during the day as well). This means you can leave a beloved crate with the door open (what I do at home) or substitute a dog bed. Some dogs may choose to sleep in another room entirely if you leave your bedroom door open. Usually due to temperature changes, dogs will lay on the cold floor of the bathroom or entry way etc. Dogs allowed on the furniture may gravitate to the couch at night. What about the dog that wants to sleep in your bed? We no longer have the issue of messing in the bed, being too fragile or developing a bad habit if you are fine with the idea. We do have a potential issue of shedding fur in the bed, zoonotic diseases/parasites, developing resource guarding of the bed or persons in it as well as bed hogging! Another issue not commonly thought of is what if you need to board your dog? Isn't it more fair to the pet sitter and your dog that he feels comfortable in his crate and isn't asking the pet sitter to sleep under her covers?

I will say I am biased, I don't like dogs in my bed. I am ironically, allergic to dogs, even though I am a dog trainer! I don't like fur in my bed either as I am a bit of a clean freak. I also am not a fan of a dog laying between me and my husband, which is totally what happened when he wanted our dog Lex in bed.

My husband would get a sheet out and put it on the bed to keep the fur off our linens and insist that Lex was only coming up for a little cuddle on his side of the bed. Lex would want to be near both of us and would sneak to the middle and belly up for a scratch. While it was cute, I felt crowded and congested. This allowance lead to Lex sneaking onto our bed in the middle of the day when the special sheet was not on the bed and led to me being frustrated upon coming home to a fur covered bed. I unfortunately, felt Lex was so smart, that he should KNOW that I don't like him on the bed and he wasn't allowed unless invited. He didn't get on the bed unless invited when we were home, but left alone, the comforts and smells of his humans was probably too inviting. Ridiculously, this became a cycle that harmed our relationship at one time (me and Lex as well as me and my husband)! So silly really.

While I never really cover this topic with my clients, as I think it is a purely personal choice, dog owners should know that there are some issues with bed sharing with your dog. If those issues don't bother you, then by all means, keep sharing the love!

Moving

My family and I recently moved from Concord to Walnut Creek. It wasn't far, but it was a drastic change as we moved from a townhouse to a large house and combined households with my father and his senior dog. This was a new home for both our families as my father left his house as well. The way each of our dogs handled the move was polar opposites of each other! I believe that has to do with how we each prepped our dog and what we each did the day of the move etc.

My dad has a very old Great Dane Lab cross. Honestly, it is a wonder this dog is alive and doing well at that! He is 13 years old and is probably close to a lean 120 lbs. This dog's head reaches my chest when he is standing relaxed. Harley absolutely adores Lucy and relies on her for comfort quite a bit unfortunately. He missed her from living with her for a year, as I took her back a few months before our big move. Harley had been living in the same home with my dad since he adopted him from the pound at 9 months old.

Lucy is 9.5 years old right now and has always been a dog to roll with the punches. She has moved quite a bit in her life and is a very emotionally solid dog.

The day of the move, I made the choice to take Lucy and my kids to my mother's house. We hung out in her backyard, had lunch, played with her puppies and spent the whole day there. Meanwhile my husband and father, along with the movers, were emptying out both our residences.

Arriving at my dad's house, my husband tells me Harley was loose in the house as the movers loaded boxes, furniture etc. Harley is quite attached to my dad's leather couch that he uses as his giant dog bed. As soon as that couch left the house, Harley began shaking and drooling and pacing. Even with the large truck, multiple loads had to be made. Harley was left in the partially empty house with a dog bed, water and a new bone. His howls and moans could be heard down the street as they drove away to unload the truck at the new place.

For the next few days as we unpacked boxes, moved furniture around and turned the house into a home, Lucy stayed on "vacation" at my mom's house. Harley was placed in our new large and amazing backyard where he scratched the screen, barked and carried on miserably. My dad kept begging me to bring Lucy back from my mom's in the hopes Harley would calm down. I waited till I felt the house was in good enough order to bring her over. I didn't want her to be stressed and as sad as it was to see Harley upset, it isn't fair to Lucy to be "used" as a comfort object at her expense.

When she came over, Harley was beyond thrilled. Most of his stress dissipated when he was allowed to lounge on his couch again. For a few weeks I was training him to stay off of the couch, but my dad felt bad about it and let him on it again.

Lucy showed zero stress. Furniture was in place, there were minimal boxes and all of her items were around. I believe that if a family is moving and it is possible for their dog to be somewhere else for a few days, that is the best situation to avoid moving related stress.

We have been here now a little over a month and most of the "bumps" from combining households center around the dogs. As I am home most of the time, outside of training, with my two little ones, the brunt of the dog issues fall upon me.

Harley's dependence on Lucy drives me a little nuts. She doesn't share the sentiment. He cannot be alone outside OR inside. While that doesn't bug me so much, his bullying tendencies do. I cannot even toss a toy for Lucy to get without him storming in and whopping her with his giant foot to take it away. If he is playing fetch, all she wants to do is herd him, which earns her a correction from Harley that is sometimes overdone on his part and needs human assistance to end it. She no longer wants to play with toys, eat a bone or tug at all since she is now associating that he will either come and take it away, or I will begin to verbally redirect him and that causes her stress. Forget about locking him inside or outside to play with her separately. That just causes him to scratch doors and bark and become destructive.

With her lack of play outlets, I wouldn't say she is depressed. She is a senior dog as well, but she is now obsessing over a flower bed that probably has lizards or maybe a rodent in it. When Lucy (or any herding dog) doesn't have outlets, they tend to make their own, however strange they may be.

My only solution to this issue so far has been to take her on walks and take her to training classes with me. With the kids, it is difficult to take Lucy to dog parks or hiking trails or places to play fetch. With the weather being hot, it hasn't been possible to even walk to a park with Lucy or the kids.

The other problem we have had is sleeping arrangements for Lucy. Our new bedroom has hardwood flooring. Out of respect for the owners, we don't want her scratching up the floor. Prior to moving we made a choice (as did my dad) to not have dog's sleeping in our bedroom anymore due to my allergies and asthma. We had successfully moved Lex out of our room, and Lucy slept in the living room at my dad's. However, we let her sleep in our room the few months she was back at our apartment because I felt bad about it.

At first, I tried getting her to stay downstairs with Harley. She was not a fan and kept coming up the stairs. Then my dad thought he would be extra nice and let her sleep in his room. She however, hates it when he coughs and he coughs a lot, so she was miserable in there and kept hiding in his adjoining bathroom. After that, we bunked her with my brother, who she loves, but she wasn't happy with that either. Tried the kid's rooms, even set up a crate downstairs in a spare room and did that for a while, but other household members kept sabotaging that. Currently, she sleeps in the carpeted hall outside our bedroom door and is happy with that. The downside is I am afraid her shifting and dog noises are waking up my 6 month old in the bedroom across from ours! I don't get much sleep as it is, with him waking up every few hours and if she is waking him as well, that just isn't going to work! I am uncertain if she is waking him, so last night I shut her in our large bathroom that is carpeted and tiled. She felt neutral about this.

Moving is hard on everyone, dogs and people! I hope that we work the kinks out of things. All and all I am very happy with our move and hopefully we won't have to do it again for a while!

Ignoring Unwanted Behavior

My dad's dog, Harley, has a behavior that drives me nuts. He likes to scratch on the door and/or bark when he wants to be let in. He is so large and powerful that the last door he did this to was knocked off alignment and he destroys screens with one swipe of the paw.

Unfortunately Harley has been reinforced for 13 years by being let in when he does this because no one likes a barking dog nor a dog that destroys screens. However, this has taught smart Harley that doing this behavior gets him what he wants. Seeing as I am home most of the day spending time with my kids in the room that has the sliding glass door where he likes to stand, Harley does this quite a bit.

At first, I was taking my Dad's lead and telling him to "go lie-down" meanwhile gesticulating his lie-down hand signal. This was not working. I progressed with frustration to yelling "No!" and I thought I was getting results. All other adults in the household did the same thing. We were consistent in the corrections, so I believed our lack of fast response time in changing his behavior was due to 13 years of him being reinforced. That is until one day I finally remembered that I am a dog trainer and my dad is not! What would I do if this were a client's dog? I would tell the client to ignore their dog and not give him any attention because negative attention is still attention. So I conducted an experiment.

I looked at the digital clock in the room when he began his barking scratching game again and verbally corrected him each and every time. It took him 5 minutes before he left, which he only left for about 20 seconds before he started another round of annoying behavior at the door! Again and again I noted how long it took and how long he left for and the results were very even. Then about the 5th round I did something different, I ignored him. I refused to make eye contact with him and you know what? He left after 1.5 minutes! And he left for 25 minutes before coming back! The next few days I noticed ignoring made him leave quickly and made him not come back for a while.

The next part of fixing the behavior was to make sure he was only allowed inside when he wasn't being obnoxious at the door. For the most part, everyone followed that rule easily, until my husband had a few mishaps and let him in over the weekend and few times because he either forgot about re-training him or he just felt bad for him because all Harley really wants is to go lie on his couch.

His love for his couch is so strong that Harley doesn't find being outside very rewarding in itself. He doesn't want to chase critters or lay in the sun or do any of the things Lucy enjoys outside. I am sure his aching bones hurt and getting up and down from the ground or even a dog bed is difficult for him. It is actually easier for him to navigate up and off the couch because of his size. I wish I could make the outdoors more rewarding for him, it would make fixing this behavior issue easier. I can't really re-direct him to do a command incompatible with scratching on the door because he can't get into any positions easily in his old age. Sit is near impossible, I don't think he could manage a back-up and I wouldn't ask him to down on the brick outside the door.

It is very very difficult to ignore a behavior you don't like. It is human nature to want to fix things right away and be proactive. It is hard to not give in sometimes as well and make excuses that he is old, he just wants his couch etc. BUT he needs to be outside sometimes when there are guests over or my baby is on the floor and he is underfoot, or when he needs to potty and eat and get some sunshine.

I've only been working on this with him for about a week and already I am seeing great results. Great results with a 13 year old dog that hasn't been training in a very very long time! Also, I am not using treats or any sort of instant reward. His delayed reward is getting to come in when he is a good boy. A puppy with minimum prior experience of being rewarded for an annoying behavior would probably come along a lot faster. So next time you are faced with a problem like barking or scratching or jumping or anything that requires you to do something for the dog to get what he wants, just try ignoring the behavior. Keep a log and you may be surprised that you are getting results when you didn't think you were.

While writing this Harley came and scratched the office door from outside, I didn't look at him and he went away! After one scratch!

Update: It has been over a year since I wrote this post and guess what? Harley doesn't do this behavior AT ALL anymore. Nope, he doesn't scratch or bark at the door. He does his business outside then goes and finds a spot on the grass to lay until he is called in. If it is cold or bad weather, he will potty, then come to the door and simply stand patiently to be let in. Yes, I fixed this issue by simply ignoring and rewarding the behavior I wanted by letting him in. No treats and no punishment. How long did it take, a few months. Keep in mind, this dog had been reinforced for his whole entire life for doing this behavior. A few months is nothing!

Re-homing a Dog

I haven't posted a new blog article in quite some time. Partly because having two children (2 year old and 5 month old), keeps me very busy! I also feel that I have covered most dog training related topics via blog articles. However, my situation with my own dogs has inspired me to create a new post. How do you know when to re-home a dog and how do you make sure it all turns out for all the parties involved?

Some of you may know the saga of Lex and Lucy and how drastically their lives changed when I had kids. A year ago when my daughter started crawling, Lucy made herself physically sick due to the stress. Border Collies are known for having space issues; they don't like their space invaded by dogs or people. Having the constraints of being a good dog and not being able to "correct" the baby, Lucy internalized it all. I temporarily relocated her to my dad's house. I visited her there (as he lives only 15 minutes away) and "dog-napped" her from time to time. After I had my son, I brought Lucy home for a while and she never left! I can only guess why she is alright now with the kids. Perhaps since my daughter is now two and gives her the space she needs, Lucy no longer feels stressed. Perhaps Lucy decided she would rather be home with me and kids all day than be alone at my dad's while he worked all day. Either way, she is a changed dog. She eats her food, she plays, and loves on both kids.

While Lucy was gone on her "vacation," Lex remained normal until my daughter went from crawling to walking to running. Suddenly she was quick and unpredictable in her movement. We worked very hard to teach Lex to go to a quiet place when he was stressed and tried to give him more exercise and attention as well as teach our daughter to leave him be. While we were successful, things changed after my son was born. I could no longer exercise him daily as my hands were full with two little ones. We didn't have any "alone" time without kids and Lex began to spend most of his time in his quiet place. As my daughter became fascinated with role playing and taking care of baby dolls etc, she began to dote on Lex by insisting she feed him his dog food, bringing him treats, attempting to share her tippy cup with him. He was NOT comfortable with this and began to show very clear warning signals to her (showing his teeth). No matter how many times I talked to her about dog's having sharp teeth and showing her pictures of snarling dogs and even giving her time-outs when she disobeyed me and tried once again to get Lex to lick her or play with her doll, she just didn't understand the magnitude of the situation. How could she? She was 23 months old!

My husband and I began talking about our fear that we didn't know how long Lex's "fuse" was before he would go from warning to biting. Lex has corrected many puppies in his life and doesn't have the most inhibited bite (as he made some of them bleed). This lack of bite inhibition scared me and even though I was managing the situation I knew something had to change. I kept thinking how sad it was that he slept away most of his days, rarely seemed happy anymore and the fear I had that he would lash out at my daughter. It is a horrible feeling to love two creatures that can't co-exist together under your current circumstances.

Luckily for me I had/have a dear friend, although 500 miles away in Oregon, that had offered time and time again to take Lex for a vacation or for good. This friend however, was about to purchase a puppy, meaning my window for her taking Lex would close forever. 

My husband and I talked about it for a while and finally decided that even though we love our dog, we love our children more and that everyone would be happier if we re-homed Lex to my friend.

A week later my friend and her husband made the long trek to come get Lex. He was a little stressed at first, but took the long ride in stride. My friend tells me that he slept on their bed the first night, and still does 3 weeks later! He plays with their Border Collie, goes to their horse barn daily to take care of the horses, goes to work with my friend (as she is a groomer) and he started playing flyball again! She can leave him un-crated in their house and he chills on the couch till she gets home. He chows his food down and barks for more. She sends me pictures and texts of what he is up to and I see more pictures on facebook each week. My heart is so happy for him!

Our home is much happier as well. I didn't realize how much responsibility it was each day to make sure nothing bad happened to my toddler in reference to Lex. Lucy doesn't seemed phased that he left and is enjoying going everywhere with us. Now that she is a senior dog and slowed down, it is not a burden to take her to the park with the kids or have her with us at a family member's house. I could never take Lex to a kid's park and taking him to a family member's house was never too much fun either as some of the dogs in my family never got along well with him.

Sometimes everything lines up and re-homing a dog is the wisest choice for a family. I know there are some people that hold onto dogs till the end of the dog's life (no matter what the conditions or circumstances) because they feel that they made a commitment to the dog for life. I am a believer that if someone can give your dog a better life than you can, you are not a failure for making the difficult choice to re-home the dog. 

Lex's Improvements

Since I last wrote, Lex has finally found his stride in his "new life." I finally realized that today. Having spent the last few months creating a routine for him and agonizing and stressing over his stress, I came to a point that I wasn't going to put anymore energy into having all my thoughts revolving around how guilty I felt about his life having changed. I think when I stopped doing that, I stopped being so stressed and agitated around him and he stopped feeling pressure from me.

Lex is a super sensitive dog and I strongly believe that he takes on a lot of stress due to my own behavior/feelings. While some things certainly have to do with the toddler, most of his stress was probably due to my own and the pressure I put on him.

I never had to try a prescription drug (in fact, my vet couldn't get what I wanted), but I do have him on an amino acid known for calming stressed dogs called L-Theanine.

We are finally in a happy zone where he knows what to expect most days and I am seeing my happy boy again. In the morning my husband takes him out and feeds him in his crate, then he hangs out in there for a little while and will usually come out and see my daughter and I in the living room after my husband has left for work. Then he usually takes a nap when he sees we aren't doing anything all that exciting and will go back to his crate or lay down behind her rocking chair in her room. We don't have the baby gate up anymore nor do we have to shut any doors. Once my daughter goes down for her noon nap that lasts two hours, he gets super excited and runs to the door because he knows we are going out in the yard to play. We play chuck-it or kick a soccer ball around till he is tired (usually 15 minutes of non-stop play), then go back inside. He drinks water and catches his breath while I do some chores. Then I give him a bone or stuffed kong to eat while I catch up on stuff or take a nap myself, since being 35 weeks pregnant entitles me to a nap! When my daughter wakes up and has a snack and some Elmo time, he usually sits with us then quietly disappears again to come out later when my husband gets home for the night unless we take a walk, pending how cold it is. He waits by the door as soon as he hears the garage and then greets/plays with my husband, goes potty and gets fed again. Once our daughter is asleep, he comes out for playing fetch down the hall or nose work games or just long cuddle and brushing sessions. He now sleeps in the living room cuddled up in a blanket on his bed due to my allergies of him scratching and creating dander all night in our room. He has adjusted quite well to sleeping alone and our relationship is better without me shushing him and telling him to stop scratching all night.

The darkness in our happy light is that life always changes and in about a month we will have a newborn as well. My husband will be home for a few weeks from work helping and Lex may go stay with a friend, but I will have to find a whole new schedule for taking care of his needs and those of two children!