For four days, I’ve been dog sitting a beagle at home with my lab. The beagle is an older female and not very active. My lab is an 11 month old female who has a lot of energy. Both are spayed. My dog generally leaves the beagle alone. Most times they just lie around in the same room. But sometimes my lab will sniff and inspect the beagle when it moves around. Sometimes when she is especially playful she will bark at the beagle and try to play. The beagle doesn’t really react and the lab eventually gives up or I play with her. I brought them both to the park Saturday and we’re fine. At home I’m concerned about my lab’s energy level and if there are negative signs I’m not picking up on. Feeding has been a bit of a challenge. My lab doesn’t show interest when I feed the beagle. However, the beagle needs to be separated when the lab eats because the beagle wants to steal and guard any food. It’s the only time the beagle shows any energy and it’s relentless until the food is gone. Giving them treats at the same time is no problem. I’m wondering what to takeaway from this experience.
Sounds pretty normal to me. Feeding separately is the correct solution if they have problems. We board a friends Sammy most week days, and they play some but mostly lay around in the same or different rooms, depending on their moods. We can and do feed them together because they get along but we would separate them if we needed to. We have been lucky, that none of our Labs have been resource guarders. We could give Tilly and Cooper the same plate to clean, and they would do it together. Cooper and the Sammy will do the same thing, but lots of dogs won't. If we go to a dog park, the Sammy will check out all the other dogs, while Cooper will retrieve tennis balls, as long as I will throw them. If there are no balls she will check out the other dogs.
