Navigating Dog Training with Multiple Handlers in Your Home

by Bailey Coldwell

In many households there tends to be a primary dog handler, along with another person who isn’t as willing or able to help accomplish your dog training goals. This can lead to the primary dog handler feeling alone, frustrated, anxious, and just overall stressed. Likewise, it can lead to the secondary handler feeling insignificant, annoyed, and unimportant. This blog post is going to discuss how we can help set the entire household up for success when there are conflicting emotions about the dog in their lives. 

I am married to someone who loves dogs. When he was first interacting with my dogs, however, I would find him giving my dogs human food when they were begging, allowing my dogs to lick his hands and face (I hate it when dogs lick me), and trying to rough house with them, which would create behaviors such as jumping and biting. He loves dogs, but would often teach them bad habits. 

We also see situations where one person in the household just doesn’t really enjoy the company of dogs. They just simply aren’t a “dog person”. The person loves you, wants you to be happy, and has agreed to bring a new dog home. But they just aren’t interested in helping out with training.

Maybe the secondary dog handler isn’t physically or emotionally able to handle the dog due to being a child, a person with a disability, or someone who is elderly. 

Regardless of if the secondary dog handler is teaching the dog unwanted habits, if the secondary dog owner is just not really interested in the dog, or if they are simply unable to care for the dog, here are some tips:  

• Try to avoid giving the secondary dog handler a 12 page list of rules about the dog. It can be tempting to write a novel about the rules that the non-primary handler MUST follow. But truthfully, they likely won’t care or it will be too overwhelming. Instead, think about just a few basic suggestions you can give the other household member(s). Housetraining, puppy overstimulation, and learning contentment away from us tends to be the top three unwanted puppy behaviors that we see. So here are a few guidelines you can give, without it being too overwhelming:  

• Try to bring the puppy outside every x minutes if the puppy is not in the crate or the pen. 

• If the puppy is jumping or biting, try to redirect them to something else. If the puppy keeps doing it, give them a break in the crate, pen, or other safe place where they can’t keep touching you. 

• If the puppy is barking in the crate or the pen, ignore it completely and the sooner it will stop. 

• Try to find ways to bring up cool or interesting facts about dog training that don't seem demanding. I noticed that my husband was giving my dog really big pieces of treats or human food. I didn’t mention anything right then, so as to not seem upset. Instead, the next time he was with me while I trained my dog, I told him, “something cool about dogs is that they can’t tell the difference between a pea sized treat and a burger sized treat”. 

• Lead by example. This has naturally helped my husband with my dogs. Just by  giving it time, he has picked up on the small things that I do with my dogs and has learned to do them himself, without TOO much nitpicking on my part. For example, if he feeds the dogs instead of me, he will still crate them first, feed them out of mentally stimulating bowls, and make sure to verbally release them before allowing them to eat (all of the things that I do with the dogs for meal times). I never told him to do these things. He just has learned to do it over time because it is what I do. 

• Less interactions are better than bad interactions. If the secondary dog handler is encouraging behaviors with your puppy that you don’t like, you can try to subtly redirect the puppy to something else. You can mention that it is time for your pup’s nap or you can show off a new training cue that you and the puppy have been working on. You can also simply let the person know that the puppy is fine resting by themselves until you get home or can work with them together. 

• Make sure that you are still giving the secondary dog handler some of your undivided attention.Getting a new dog can be a big change for the household and it is common to see the primary dog handler spend hours per day focused on the puppy. In order to help with the adjustment, show them that they are still important. This might mean that you go out to lunch with them or watch a movie together, while the dog learns some crate contentment without you. 

• Be willing to compromise. This goes for everyone in the home. Sit down and chat about how to keep everyone smiling. 

Giovanna Tompkins (CPDT-KA), a good friend of mine, is a local dog trainer. Her partner is known to be more of a “cat person”. Giovanna shares her experiences and advice about navigating this dynamic: 

“When combining our lives together, we had to figure out how to best join our vastly different lives. It was a difficult journey and isn’t perfect by any means today, but our home is much more peaceful now. I learned a lot in this journey to help all of us

live in harmony and we hit lots of bumps in the road. But with consistency, lots of patience and some tough talks- we were able to figure out a plan that worked for us.

The first thing we had to do was set some expectations with each other. I made it extremely clear that the dog is mine and the responsibility of taking care of the dog, were all mine. I take care of mental, physical, and relationship needs, even if I am tired or don’t want to.

We had to learn what triggers were the hardest for my boyfriend to adjust to. He wanted his own space that the dogs were not allowed- free of dog hair. We established the bedroom would be a human only zone. I can cuddle on the couch with the dog, and he can have a safe zone.

Teaching your dog some cues also allows for the human to set boundaries. One cue we have is “get out”. This means to get out of the kitchen while we are cooking. This teaches the dog some boundaries and helps give my boyfriend space while he cooks us dinner. Everyone in the house must be on the same page about the words used in the cues, and enforcing the rules. 

Advocate for both the human and the dog. I stepped in when I could read his body language was not enjoying an interaction with the dog. I would also step in when frustration would build between him and the dog. I want both the dog and the human to feel advocated for in times where they may struggle with a language barrier. Afterall, I know how to speak dog better than he does and I did not have the expectation he would learn to speak dog right away. Although, the more I advocated for each of their spaces, the more I noticed him wanting to learn. 

Whenever people find out that I am a dog trainer and my boyfriend is, well, a cat person I am usually greeted with laughter and shock as to how we even make that work - the journey was tough. But being together now for almost 3 and a half years, I actually think I prefer him the way he is. To me, he is a blank slate who knows nothing about dogs, dog training, dog behavior, etc. But the more time we spent together, the more curious he got about it. And the more I could teach him! I enjoy that he doesn’t have much knowledge of dogs, because I get to educate him of my deepest passion in life.

One thing I have learned is the more that I took on all the dog responsibilities and showed that I was making an effort to teach the dogs to respect his boundaries, the more his relationship with them opened up. He was much more excited to offer to help me with them, the less I pushed. The more he noticed I was caring for his space in our house as well as theirs, the more he did want to take the time to train them, play with them, and love them; because he knows how much I love them.

In summary, here are my top helpful tips:

● Enforcing boundaries

● Establishing triggers

● Communicating needs

● Advocacy for human and dog

● Helpful training commands

● Setting clear expectations and timelines”

We hope that these tips will help the primary dog handler and the secondary dog handler in your household. Regardless of if the secondary handler doesn’t know how to train the dog correctly, isn’t able to care for the dog, or simply isn’t a dog person, we can still find ways to have a successful and happy household.