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

by Karen B. London, Patricia B. McConnell

Create order out of canine chaos in your multi-dog home by understanding canine behavior and using positive reinforcement. Manage multiple dogs at meals, on walks and in the dog park.

Genres: Dogs, Nonfiction, Animals

55 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good advice on managing multiple dogs. I have the 2001 edition and wish I had the extra leash-walking info from the 2008 edition. I found the info on play between two dogs to be especially helpful.

At the end of the day, the advice is prevention, give your dogs individual attention, and work up to working with them as a group.

I appreciated the supportive tone of the book written by people who clearly enjoy their dog families, but are also frank about the work and issues anything >1 entails.

[Magen - Inquiring Professional Dog Trainer · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Marnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really short book. If you are looking for an exhaustive tome on managing multiple dogs, you may feel somewhat disappointed, especially since the authors direct you to a large list of comprehensive books at the end. But I think that would be selling the book (or as the author calls it, pamphlet) short. There are a variety of common problems outlined such as crowding the door, chaotic meal times, doggy play time, and walks, that will pose a problem for any multiple dog owner and this book offers easy to understand techniques for addressing these problems.There are no instant fixes. These methods involve spending time, every day, working your dogs individually and separately, but the authors uses as much positive reinforcement with their readers as they do with the dogs they train and the lesson are broken down into small enough pieces to feel manageable even for busy and/or uncoordinated amateur home dog trainers.

I can't speak to the success or failure of the methods, since I have just finished the book, but the methods are in line with a current trend in training where good behavior is lavishly rewarded and undesirable behavior is simply ignored. Whether or not this method or the method now popular with a certain hollywood dog trainer with the roman emperor's name is more or less effective, is not my place to say, but I have seen examples of dogs trained both ways who effectively meet their handler's expectations. In the end, my style is more in keeping with the former, so it is my preference.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the philosophy. We were feeling stressed out about the advice to let our dogs "work it out." Our household is much more peaceful now.

[Johnny Fleck · Rating 1 out of 5]

Summary in a sentence:
If you have more than one dog, you should teach them to sit, wait, off, and break them up if they fight. The end.

[Kimberly Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

For such a short book (a booklet), this is packed with really helpful advice.

What I found most useful in my training:
1. Spending time with each dog individually to build skills and your bond without the presence of your other dogs,
2. Advice about fights often happening in doorways or gates and recommendations on how to avoid those, and,
3. Body blocking. This is a technique I used without knowing what it's called (ex: to step towards your dog when they jump up, instead of what's typically recommended, which is stepping away or turning away from your dog). I've seen several trainers, classes, and workshops and never had body blocking laid out so simply as it was in this booklet. It's been transformational for getting my dogs not to door dash and breaking up stiffening tension between them, and I continue to see relevant uses for it every day.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very short book, but helpful if you are dealing with issues having multiple dogs. I appreciated it partly for the sympathy inherent in it. Most of the suggestions are pretty simple- to work with dogs individually so they master certain skills, then help them to be able to do it while in a group. Things like wait and off. Also to have group names (ie dogs and they understand it means all of them) and commands, so they get used to all acting to one command. Much is simple, but it was helpful to read it and get a few new ideas.

[Akasha Brandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful guide on dealing with multiple dogs in one space. Includes a very poignant section on deciding to re-home a dog as well which helped me through the struggle of re-homing a dog who wasn't fitting in very well in our household with our other pets.

[Julie A Balerna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just okay

I was looking for more impactful advice about introducing a new dog to our home (we already have one dog), and felt that this book didn’t contain enough useful information on that subject.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read on the basics on how to manage a multi dog household. Includes some key behaviours to train to make life easier, as well as some information on what behaviours to look out for to prevent escalation. It’s an easy read with little jargon.

[Wendy Zercher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good advice

For a short read there was a lot of useful information to get some ideas on how to be outnumbered. Although it won't answer all or more problematic issues, it definitely gets you thinking creatively and gives good additional resources.

[SHYLO-JORDAN GRAY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great information

Great information no matter your level of knowledge regarding animal behavior. Novice or expert can learn and reaffirm through this well-written informative guide.

[Cynthia L Peters · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another great book for beginners. It is an overview of multi-dog homes. It outlines the problems and offers solutions, but in a general way. It does offer suggestions that will go more in depth for the different issues.

[Fan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have read other books from the author， this book wont bring too much new things.

[Kerrie Hoar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author does a good job of presenting common challenges that come up with you have multiple dogs.  She addresses each challenge by discussing how to train each dog on its own and then how to approach implementing what they have learned as a group.  

I would highly recommend this short book for anyone with a multiple dog household.

[Noel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and sweet, with practical, step-by-step advice.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this when we had Claire and decided to raise Golly (service puppy 🐕‍🦺). I forgot the gems in here. Most importantly, taking up space is a big deal for dogs. I hope that helps with three. 😬

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super quick read filled with SO MUCH useful information. Helped me so much with my growing pack of corgis.

[Caitlyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

good primer on training strategies for multi dog households . read it in a few hours and will get working through. this is not exhaustive but does have sources

[Jennifer Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was published in 2008 so some of the advice, like body blocking, is outdated. There were some great tips about group cues.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful tips, definitely going to try these out!

[Sofie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has a lot of the same exercises that are in Chill Out Fido!: How to Calm Your Dog, but taught in a different way. London's method moves a lot faster, and involves physically stopping the dog from making the "wrong" decision, while Arthur's is closer to error-less learning: rewarding desired behavior while the dog is well under threshold, and moving back a step whenever it becomes too much.

I feel like the methods in this book could be more frustrating for the dog, and lead to sneaky misbehavior. But what do I know. It's interesting to see two "positive" ways of training the same thing.

Not a lot of information in this book. I feel like McConnell's other books and seminars on dog behavior and play would be more helpful.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just made a first pass, two days after (yeah I know) having adopted a second Great Pyrenees. I'd been doing something like body-blocking I think instinctively with our first Pyr, but she's a 3 or 4 y/o, and apparently much quicker to read human body language than our new almost-2 y/o puppy. He's been in and out of a couple different fosters, and his adoption attempts seem to have ended abruptly upon problems with barking in the house and being un-walkable on the leash. So we don't think this kind of thing was tried on him before? Maybe?

We were prepared for a couple weeks of adoption stress. (Our first one was rescued out of Korea, with a stab wound in her back, sooooo...yeah we were ready.) But the barking was really getting to both of us, and we were starting to get worried about integrating him successfully with our first pooch, who doesn't bark at all (except in the case of 'porch invaders'). And yes, we are now incredibly appreciative that our first go around was with a dog mentally strong enough to save the barking for special occasions!

Anyway we started calmly body-blocking with him just this morning whenever he bolted barking at the door... and it's been four hours of people talking outside, dogs barking across the street, and motorcycles on a holiday weekend--in complete, serene silence. Our first dog has been even more deliriously happy than usual now that I've been able to be that much more consistent with her. There are a LOT of good, basic, practical suggestions in this book, and I can't wait to start working on them--and I imagine they'll have less immediate results--but this one technique is worth the weight of this book in GOLD.

[Colleen Remer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful information

[John Poulain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd read Other End of the Leash by one of the co-authors about Dog Training and especially focused on "Speaking Dog" to make sure you're understood rather than expecting the dog to essentially learn basic English you use tone and body language (and as few command words as possible) to set yourself up for success. Feeling Outnumbered continued in the same vein but talking about how to manage multi dog households and whist lots of the advice was similar or obvious (make sure you train each dog individually for example) it was a nice refresher on the principles and advantages from having a second dog to reinforce the others behaviour.

It's in a similar style to the first with funny anecdotes as well as some personal stories about making mistakes to stop anyone from taking things too seriously. The idea is that you train your dog by being the provider and in charge of walks rather than spending too much time trying to "Be Alpha" and wrestling with it, pinning it to the floor, which dogs see as more juvenile behaviour. You just need to be more interesting than the squirrels!

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a helpful primer on owning multiple dogs. I've recently added a second, and have been surprised at how the dynamic has changed. What I appreciated most is having an expert walk me through some of the things that I was struggling with - does it have to be "fair" all of the time? is it okay for one to sleep on the bed and one to sleep elsewhere? what's the best way to deal with jealousy? do I need to train them separately?

The training that I've always found most helpful from Patricia McConnell is the idea that both dogs need to learn to be polite and wait. My 1 yr old has impulse control issues (as young dogs do). I've picked up some great tips in reading this short book for helping to corral those types of problems.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very helpful, and I recommend it to anyone who has more than one dog. With my three, it has given me hope for a more sane life. Now that I've read through the whole thing, I will go back and read each section, then put the helpful directions into practice before I procede to the next section.

[Kali · Rating 4 out of 5]

This booklet has a lot of great information and training exercises for multi-dog households. The authors immediately won me over with the line, "three dogs are as much work as you would expect seven to be." I finished it in 30-40 minutes, but will definitely be referencing it again as I work on training.

[Terri Bevins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Multi-dog households aren't always easy, but having a few good strategies make everthing run better. Two excellent trainers help make the world of multiple dog households seem easy and orderly. It's working at my house.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good tips on how to work with your dogs when you have more than one in the house. I haven't started group training yet, because we are working on individual training, but we will definitely get some use out of this book.