Magic Mutts (2024)

Magic Mutts provides a friendly and reliable dog walking, daycare, home boarding and training service, with an experienced handler. All walks are in a safe and stimulating environment for the dogs and include some basic training.

07/02/2022

February is the month when many Badger cubs are born. So keeping small dogs on their leads near setts is vital as they can very easily access the underground nursery chamber. We can all do our part in keeping our wildlife safe. Don't leave it to someone else. BE THAT SOMEONE!

26/10/2021

You have heard of the dark side of raising two puppies together, right?
I hope so.
Be it siblings or different litters.

I am not going to rehash thousands of articles on Google, you can do that yourself. I am going to share my personal experience.

Apart from being a full time behaviourist I also run a small exclusive boarding facility in my home. I am the proud owner of a puppy which overlapped with a clients boarding puppy for two weeks. They were of a similar age.

I honestly don’t know how people manage two puppies together! It was a pain in the ass to put it mildly.

As the days went by, I found myself continuously reducing time together, until eventually walks, sleeping, visual exposure and play was cut out COMPLETELY.

Why did I do this? :
-Play was wild with no thought process going on. “After lots of laughing comes crying”. It was going to end badly!

-Babies are not the best teachers for babies.

-On walks, both pups did little to no exploring and were unable to experience the world at large as they only had eyes for each other. They were blinkered to anything else around them. Leashing up and rotating was not effective.
This is a critical learning period in puppies lives and they were missing out!

-The experienced senior dogs disengaged completely and for the most part, were not interested in getting involved with the delinquent puppy play. The pups were missing out on the valuable lessons adult dogs teach!

-There was no off switch. The puppies would have continued play until they literally fell down exhausted. This is not healthy and had me constantly playing helicopter Mom being the party pooper. Far too much work and irritating at the best of times.

-Splitting the pups with a barrier was not terribly effective either as they continued to play ‘bitey-face’ or chase games along a fence line. I was not going to allow this to happen on my watch. I was responsible for my puppy’s learning as well as that of the boarding puppy.

-Recalls plummeted. It took a lot more effort to engage the puppies and have them acknowledge anything else other than each other.

The main reason the ill-informed push two puppies together is that “they will keep each other company and entertain each other”.
No kidding!!
There is however a lifelong cost to this!
It is the over attachment to each other that inhibits individual learning. Instead of creating individual puppies who reach their full potential, one could argue that puppies growing up together become half of what they could be.

Over the years, I have taken care of sibling dogs for owners. I see the emotional fall out as clear as day. The behaviours may not be irritating or of concern to the owner therefore there is no need to address it. I do ask myself quietly how much better the individual dog may have coped in our world if they were not one of two pups growing up together.

There is often pride and endearment when owners say their pups love each other so much that they can’t be without one another. As life is no fairy tale, I find this very sad, as the extent of trauma, should the second dog need a vet visit or passes away, would be amplified for the dog that remains. This is easily preventable.

It is as simple as having some self-control, a little patience, putting the work into one puppy first so when the second pup arrives the now older dog can assist in raising the new pup.

My personal recommendation is a two-year gap between puppies in pet dog homes.

If you got away with worst case scenario of two puppies fighting when together and panicking when split, you are the lucky ones. Speak to those who didn’t and hear their heartache.

If you are in the market for a puppy and the breeder or welfare organisation push two puppies onto you, ….. run! Say no! Pushing two puppies at the same time is irresponsible – if you experienced this in the past, were you ever informed about the down side? Probably not.

If you are wanting two puppies because you have two children and they each need a puppy; sit down and hear me when I say the puppies will NEVER belong to your children. You as the adult are solely responsible for the puppies – they do not ‘belong’ to the children. Your children can get their own puppies when they move out and are paying rent.

If you are still not ready to hear this advise that is ok. There is no judgement, and I will do all I can to help you make the best of a current situation.

If you have not obtained the puppies yet, I would like to ask “What is the harm in waiting?”
Hindsight is a funny thing.
Is it really worth taking the risk for your emotional benefit?

07/10/2021

It really doesn’t matter if your dog is friendly or not.

What matters is that you don’t take the choice away from another owner (and their dog) as to who they interact with.

There can be so many reasons why a dog and their owner need space from you and your dog.

Please allow them that choice 💙

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http://www.magicmutts.co.uk/

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