How do you walk 2 or more dogs?

[slleipnir]

Curious how people walk their dogs. I usually walk one at a time so I can get them to heel etc and work with them..however, I discovered it's very easy to take BOTH dogs and have them BOTH heel hah. It was probably weird looking, but I walked with Zeke heeling next to me, and Jo heeling byside him. Then if I stop, they both sit..to cute! How do you do it?

[LeahMM]

Bout the same as you.

[cali]

I have 5 dogs, 1 at a time would be too many walks lol I usually walk 2 at a time, I rarly take my moms dogs for a walk, I always walk Happy and Misty together, Happy walks off leash heeling beside me. Misty does not heel outside, she does not even walk on a loose leash outside, all the trainers that I tried to help are at their wits end, so a haltie is our only choice, she does not heel on that either shestill pulls but she cant pull hard enugh to bother me lol occasionaly I take Blair with me, but not to often, my mom takes care of her dogs exersize. I walked 4 at once before....I will never do that again lol

[Tollers-n-Dobes]

I usually walk all 3 separately, I have much more control over one dog than 2 at a time. I have tried walking both Tango and Winston at the same time and it did work out ok but I jsut feel more comfortable with jsut one for some reason...

[My Peanuts]

I walk all three of mine at once. When I just had Sylvia and Harley I bought a splitter, sometimes called a coupler. Then when I got Morty I added another one. Three dogs, one leash. It's nice because they don't get tangled. This works best if the dogs walk well on a leash already and are around the same size. Sylvia is 19lbs, Harley is 22lbs, and Morty is 16lbs and it works great.

I'll snap a picture of our set up if it will help.

[Shelteez2]

I walk Em and Clipse together. They both heel on my left, Em closest to my leg and then Clipse beside her. They are most often off leash.

When I am dog sitting I walk up to 4 at a time. Right now I am dog sitting 2 dobes so I walk with one dobe on either side, Em is off leash in front, and Clipse is off leash behind.

[cloverfdx]

Simply..... Off lead . We drive to the park we all hop out and off they go, whilst i wander aimlessly around behind them lol, they usually know where thay want to go and i follow.

[lv4dogs]

I walk both of mine together (and did the same when I had 3-4 dogs). I used to dog sit & assist at agility & obedience shows & classes etc... & there have been times when I'm walking 5-7 dogs.

I teach my dogs to heal but they also know to walk properly on a leash (not pulling or crossing each other all the time etc...), I call it "walk". If I don't mind if they pull & go crazy etc.. I just release them by saying "ok". Usually I just walk them like I would walk one as I rarely use the heal command. But I also taught my dogs to heal on the right side (I call it "side"). So if I need them to heal I can either have them both heal side by side or I can have one heal on the left side & I tell the other one "side" which is healing on the right side.

[cyber-sibes]

I walk them both at once. I did when I had Star and Rosie, too. They would both heel on the left side, and sit at every corner (I was so proud of them!)
Star and Sherman walk together, but I have not taught him to heel since we usually go to the dogpark so they can be off leash. Star is 8 1/2 now and she likes to walk at a calm pace, which is very nice! Been walking them at the resevoir lately, Sherman gets so excited by the sound of the waves on the rocks!

[IRescue452]

About the same way except I use a coupling leash. Now Pepper is too old for walks and just gets a romp in the yard before me and Autumn go out. If we even went around the block I'd be carrying Pepper half way home. Btw, Autumn heels on whichever side I ask her to none of that left-handed stuff for me. I still don't get what is so important about heeling on the left side.

[pitc9]

I walk both of mine (just about ) every morning.
Buddy stays on my left and Sierra stays on my right.
I tried having Sierra walk on Buddy's left side, but he doesn't like that one bit!!
Sierra used to be a puller BIG time, but now that we are working with a dog behaviorist she has improved greatly!!

[PJ's Mom]

I walk both of mine together all the time. However, they usually get all tangled up, trip me and each other, and drag me behind them. So, walks are usually a funny disaster.

[Jadapit]

I walk Jada and Diamond together. I'm going to start working with Ebony soon. I dont know if i will be able to walk all three of them at once. Time will tell.

[lv4dogs]

Originally posted by IRescue452
I still don't get what is so important about heeling on the left side.

I'm not sure what it is about the left side. I actually just searched (google & yahoo) and found no reason why they chose the left side.
But if I were to GUESS I would say it is for showing purposes. *Most* shows the dog works clockwise, with the judge in the middle, therefore the dog needs to be on the left side of the human in order for the judge to fully see the dog.
I also think that to make judging fair they should have the dogs all do it the same way. The more uniform the dogs are the fairer it is.

But I would love to find out if I am correct or the reasone behind it. I'll be searching some more to see what I can find.

If I was never an assistant in obedience, agility & behavorial training, and my pets were not used as specimans & I if I was not interested in showing I think I would of taught my dogs to heal on both sides but just using the one word, heal. But since they were specimans & my next dog I will be showing I don't want to confuse them and have them accidently heal on the wrong side.

[pnance]

I have 4 dogs, and walk them in pairs. I can't even image walking all 4 at once. Group 1, I use a couplar or splitter, one leash 2 dogs. It leaves one hand free to carry a squirt bottle (we have a lot of neighbors who let their dogs run loose). Group 2, one dog heals on the right one on the left. I'm still working on getting 1 not to pull in this group so the couplar isn't an option yet. Luckily these 2 are my friendly ones so loose dogs aren't as big of an issue.