Kennelling together - The day will come!

[Simoman 110]

Each to there own, as i said, made that mistake in the past, i'll never make it again. Some dogs are happy to be kenneled and may have the odd posteur and grumble, but with terriers and terrier based lurchers often a little grumble isn't enough and things are taken all the way with devastating results.........

[paulus 26]

perhaps this is one for skycat, but is the trend for running, kenneling dogs alone over the last few decades taken away some of the lurches ability to work and act as a pack animal, surely as very few dogs now have the right environment to learn how to behave in a pack and not many owners having much of an idea how pack hierarcy works, then over time this traite will be dulled or lost

[paulus 26]

heres my take on some of the points raised, bird i disagree that hounds are in any way differnt to other dogs, they only differ in as much as they are brought up in a pack environment and know to behave in that environment, the average lurcher is purchased at 6-8 weeks old and either kennelled alone or brought into the house, it will grow up without learning any pack etiquette, so its understandable that problems will occur if put in with another dog/bitch who has been brought up the same. When i was young on the estate i was raised it was normal to see packs of dogs roaming the streets, fights for higher places in the pack were common but i never saw or herd of one ever being killed as is the same with most pack animals. fights are normally bravado and signs of dominance with the odd bite to back it up, the less dominant will backdown before any real damage occurrs.

dogs fighting while roaming the streets have some were to escape to mate kenneled dogs have no were to escape to why take the chance john

that would depend on how you kennell your dogs and you own situation. mine have access to a 16ft x 6ft run aswell as a 6ft x 3ft kennell also untill i go to bed the gate of the run is always open giving them access to a 72ft x 35ft garden.

[littlefish 587]

It wasn't so long ago that we were reading on here about some boy's saluki being killed by his rottweiller. People always think 'it will never happen with my dogs, I know my own dogs' until it does.......to me, it isn't worth taking the risk.

[Peter4190 95]

I have my 2 russels kennelled together they are brother and sister but I have been thinking that I should separate them, I never leave balls , bones or food in the kennel, I think they should be ok but not sure.

[skycat 6,174]

perhaps this is one for skycat, but is the trend for running, kenneling dogs alone over the last few decades taken away some of the lurches ability to work and act as a pack animal, surely as very few dogs now have the right environment to learn how to behave in a pack and not many owners having much of an idea how pack hierarcy works, then over time this traite will be dulled or lost

 

That's very kind of you to mention me. I no way consider myself an expert canine behaviourist but I've learned a thing or two over the years.

 

Part of the problem occurs when you breed for a particular trait in a working dog: drive, courage, a short fuse, and an ability to take the fight to an animal that may be considerably bigger than you: speaking from the dog's point of view of course. When you no longer breed for the canine pack thing, but create a dog that is designed to work on its own, then I believe you risk losing tolerance, canine pack manners etc. Fox hounds and beagles live quite happily, for the most part, in big numbers, as Paulus has already said.

 

Stick a terrier in a small kennel and run (small by territorial standards in the dogs' eyes) with a lurcher, and it will usually be the terrier that starts the problem by maybe just curling its lip at the lurcher and telling it to go sleep somewhere else. Problem is, the lurcher can't: it physically cannot move out of the terrier's space because of the pen walls. OK, the traits we've bred into terriers also mean that even if there is space to get away, the terrier will try to push things to a conclusion: bred to do it, not its fault.

Some lurchers too are like that, and it's nowt to do with bull crosses: I've had lurchers which had to be kept separate: short fuse, killing mentality: hurt me and I'll kill you, no hesitation. Our working dogs are light years away from the wild canine mentality, but so many people just don't understand what they are seeing when their dogs behave in a particular way.

At the risk of repeating myself: we created that extreme drive in certain dogs: we have to treat them as carefully as we would a loaded gun. You wouldn't leave a loaded gun lying in a garden or yard: these dogs are the same. You never know when they may go off if someone bumps into them or the wind blows the wrong way. OK, that's a bit extreme as a metaphor, but that's all there is to it really.

 

OR, you could look at it in a completely different way..............

 

Dogs are pack animals, even our modern working dogs. They understand how things work with each other, but we force them to live with companions they may actually hate. But being dogs, they accept how we treat them, accept being stuck in a kennel with an irritating companion, putting up with the aggravation until one day something really small may happen, but its the drop that tips the stress bucket over, and a fight happens, and its usually the smaller dog that ends up dead.

 

IMO, everyone who kennels dogs together should really learn a good bit about dog body language first, study their animals on a daily basis: at work, at home, at play, and learn, truly understand, how their dogs interact with each other. I've got lurchers which I could trust implicitly with each other: they really like each other, would pine if they were left on their own: lie curled up together, clean each other's wounds, but I would NEVER trust a terrier, even my old bitch, now gone, with a puppy of any breed or type, other than their own. And I'd NEVER even consider kennelling even the mildest of terriers with a lurcher: even if it didn't end in tears, I've found that 99% of all terriers prefer their own space when sleeping, and by that I mean their own kennel, not just a bed big enough for more than one dog.

[artful212 394]

thats some answer skycat lol some good points there

 

but imo i think its because dogs dont hunt as packs anymore apart from hounds its single handed so i think dogs have got use to being alone used alone not like days gone by

im not saying you cant kennel them together but i was told kennel 2 its up to you kennel 3 bury 1

atb artful

[paulus 26]

perhaps this is one for skycat, but is the trend for running, kenneling dogs alone over the last few decades taken away some of the lurches ability to work and act as a pack animal, surely as very few dogs now have the right environment to learn how to behave in a pack and not many owners having much of an idea how pack hierarcy works, then over time this traite will be dulled or lost

 

That's very kind of you to mention me. I no way consider myself an expert canine behaviourist but I've learned a thing or two over the years.

 

Part of the problem occurs when you breed for a particular trait in a working dog: drive, courage, a short fuse, and an ability to take the fight to an animal that may be considerably bigger than you: speaking from the dog's point of view of course. When you no longer breed for the canine pack thing, but create a dog that is designed to work on its own, then I believe you risk losing tolerance, canine pack manners etc. Fox hounds and beagles live quite happily, for the most part, in big numbers, as Paulus has already said.

 

Stick a terrier in a small kennel and run (small by territorial standards in the dogs' eyes) with a lurcher, and it will usually be the terrier that starts the problem by maybe just curling its lip at the lurcher and telling it to go sleep somewhere else. Problem is, the lurcher can't: it physically cannot move out of the terrier's space because of the pen walls. OK, the traits we've bred into terriers also mean that even if there is space to get away, the terrier will try to push things to a conclusion: bred to do it, not its fault.

Some lurchers too are like that, and it's nowt to do with bull crosses: I've had lurchers which had to be kept separate: short fuse, killing mentality: hurt me and I'll kill you, no hesitation. Our working dogs are light years away from the wild canine mentality, but so many people just don't understand what they are seeing when their dogs behave in a particular way.

At the risk of repeating myself: we created that extreme drive in certain dogs: we have to treat them as carefully as we would a loaded gun. You wouldn't leave a loaded gun lying in a garden or yard: these dogs are the same. You never know when they may go off if someone bumps into them or the wind blows the wrong way. OK, that's a bit extreme as a metaphor, but that's all there is to it really.

 

OR, you could look at it in a completely different way..............

 

Dogs are pack animals, even our modern working dogs. They understand how things work with each other, but we force them to live with companions they may actually hate. But being dogs, they accept how we treat them, accept being stuck in a kennel with an irritating companion, putting up with the aggravation until one day something really small may happen, but its the drop that tips the stress bucket over, and a fight happens, and its usually the smaller dog that ends up dead.

 

IMO, everyone who kennels dogs together should really learn a good bit about dog body language first, study their animals on a daily basis: at work, at home, at play, and learn, truly understand, how their dogs interact with each other. I've got lurchers which I could trust implicitly with each other: they really like each other, would pine if they were left on their own: lie curled up together, clean each other's wounds, but I would NEVER trust a terrier, even my old bitch, now gone, with a puppy of any breed or type, other than their own. And I'd NEVER even consider kennelling even the mildest of terriers with a lurcher: even if it didn't end in tears, I've found that 99% of all terriers prefer their own space when sleeping, and by that I mean their own kennel, not just a bed big enough for more than one dog.

even when you think you understand all of your dogs ways and manorisms something comes along to prove you wrong as it did to me a few weeks ago, something i still yet dont fully understand. but that wasnt kennell related,

[Simoman 110]

In some cases people justify kenneling together as they have that many dogs single occupancy isn't an option.................

[patterdale666 1,620]

A friend of mine had 4 terriers in together for the last few years i told him its an accident waitin to happen but he didnt think so untill he came home from work yesterday to a dead dog

[haymin 2,465]

I have a 2 year old and a 6 month old Lurcher they sleep together play and really seem that they wouldn't do anything to each other they are both bitches and kennelled up together with the girl friends 17 year old westie ), think the lurchers will be fine together , but maybe thats me just being blind ?

[Simoman 110]

I have a 2 year old and a 6 month old Lurcher they sleep together play and really seem that they wouldn't do anything to each other they are both bitches and kennelled up together with the girl friends 17 year old westie ), think the lurchers will be fine together , but maybe thats me just being blind ?

 

Kennel death waiting to happen imo...

[weasle 1,119]

Don't think hounds fight any less than a pack of lurcher's would in similar circumstances.

[weasle 1,119]

On the subject of wolves, in captivity if a wolf starts getting bullied,You may give it a night on its own to lick its wounds,But the next day it needs to go straight back out with the pack,Your only hope is that it will find its self at the bottom of the pack order.If you were to give it a week to its self to recover the pack WOULD kill it as soon as you let it back out.

[paulus 26]

On the subject of wolves, in captivity if a wolf starts getting bullied,You may give it a night on its own to lick its wounds,But the next day it needs to go straight back out with the pack,Your only hope is that it will find its self at the bottom of the pack order.If you were to give it a week to its self to recover the pack WOULD kill it as soon as you let it back out.

abit like my mrs then never leave her on her own to long or else she turns violent