Please can anyone advise... we have a 2 yr old female westie who has been with us for the last 14 months and thought it would be a good idea to get a 2nd westie as company for her when we are out at work. Last week we brought home an approximate 2yr old male westie whose owner was taken into long term care and had neglected him. He has only recently been introduced to a lead and toys etc. They seem to get on really well on the whole and will happily go on walks together, eat at the same time, enjoy attention at the same time etc, although they have had a couple of minor fights which we think were to establish who was boss. However, we have a problem in getting their leads on. As soon as the leads appear, the male westie gets extremely excited and our female westie seems to think that he is going to hurt me and starts to nip and snap at him. Once both leads are finally on, they settle down and enjoy their walk together. Any suggestions as to how we get their leads on without this chaos as I find myself getting stressed by it and will have to cope with this on mw own from next week?
Hi there. I am glad that your female westie got a company and they get along well most of the time!
The only time they get excited and nip and snap each other is when you pull out their leashes, right? As soon as they see the leashes they want to be the first one to be put it on and get to walk. Then, how about this training?
Before you take out their leashes, have both dogs sit and wait at the separate spots. If they get excited and start fighting, don't do anything but just stand still until they settle. You may want to put the leashes back to the closet/drawer if you have already taken them out. The rule here is that they don't get to walk unless they can sit quietly and be nice to each other. You can reward them with treats while you make them sit still. I would put the leash on the female one first all the time but make sure the male one will get his turn too, just because the female one has been living with you longer. That is the rule in our household and it has been successful for all the 3 dogs came after the fist dog.
Hi We had a similar problem when it was meal times, they would all rush at the bowls as we brought them out. We have now implemented the rule that they all sit on there bed and wait to be called, no food until all in place, we only started one week ago, initially with leads on but now without and all wait for there name to be called before going for there food. We can only say how pleased we are with the SitStayFetch course.
Well it took a while, 30 mins to be precise but we managed to get them on their leads without any snapping. The female was still snappy at first so back into the drawer went the leads. By the 6th time of doing it she was just very vocal but not snapping... progress!
We will keep persevering and as with everything else, we have to keep remembering to act like the alpha! However, I cannot fault the good advice we have tried out already both from this forum and the training course.
